


The Liar and the Auror

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Auror Harry, Aurors, Blackmail, Deception, M/M, Post - Order of the Phoenix, Post-Hogwarts, Secrets, Wizarding World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 22:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2287307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape has always wanted to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.  But what happens when the wizarding world no longer has much use for his talents?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's hard to believe that I wrote this over a decade ago. There were still 14 months to go until _The Half-Blood Prince_ was published so it was spec fic at the time, though I suppose it's technically AU now. Anyway, I hope it's held up all the same.

“You’re what?” Snape said, and his face turned white.

“I have no doubt that you heard me correctly the first time, Severus,” Dumbledore said. “I am placing you on probation.”

“Headmaster,” Snape began, fighting to maintain his composure. “You cannot be serious.”

“Oh yes, I can be serious,” Dumbledore replied, steepling his fingers atop the burnished wood of his desk. “And I daresay you will find that I _am_ being serious. Quite serious.”

“On what grounds can you do this?” he whispered. 

Dumbledore sighed. “There has been some question as to the appropriateness of your behaviour toward your students,” he replied. 

The true meaning behind this statement was all too clear to Snape - too many Slytherins and their parents had fallen in the Dark Lord's final battle, and now Snape had no remaining advocates on the school's board of governors. Never mind that his position as Ministry spy amongst those Slytherin families with traditional leanings toward the Dark had essentially prohibited him from courting favour with parents in the other three houses.

If Dumbledore would not mention it, neither would he; he did have some remaining dignity.

“My behaviour is appropriate to the subject I teach.” Which was true. One had to be firm with students when a single careless slip could result in explosions, mutations, deaths, or worse fates yet. Sinistra, Flitwick, Vector - those teachers could afford to be kind and forgiving toward their students. To what did a careless mistake in _astronomy_ ever lead? Mistaking Neptune for Uranus?

“Nevertheless,” Dumbledore answered, “that is the conclusion of the Board of Governors. And,” he added, “I would have to agree with them. Your classroom demeanour is at times overbearing. Previous potions masters taught the subject admirably without employing your…tactics.”

By which Dumbledore meant that now that the war was over, he had outlived his usefulness, both as a spy and a professor. A hundred questions flitted through his head - _Was I so obviously a pawn? Do you have so little gratitude? Did no one come to my defence? How could you? If there is no place for me at Hogwarts, what am I to do?_ \- but he could not ask a single one.

“Severus,” said Dumbledore gently, “you needn’t look so sour. You are not being permanently removed. Only… given some time to… reflect. A sabbatical, if you will. It isn‘t unheard of amongst Hogwarts professors.”

“Reflect.” Meaning, of course, that he had the whole duration of this ‘sabbatical’ in which to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t licked the feet of the correct people during the long years spent playing double agent.

“Would it hurt you so terribly to show a gentler face to your students?” Dumbledore asked, his piercing blue eyes pinning Snape where he sat.

“I was under the impression that in order to allay suspicions in certain families, I was only to show a 'gentle face' to specific students.” _As you told me to do._ The time for diplomatic vagaries had passed. And there was no way that Dumbledore could deny Snape's unspoken accusation. Snape had been told as a condition of hire that while he was not to pass or fail given students without justification, there were indeed certain students he was to favour over others.

Dumbledore was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed heavily and rose from his chair, atrocious paisley robes swirling in his wake. Snape sniffed; the effect would have been much better, he felt, had Dumbledore been wearing Snape’s usual black.

“I appreciate that making the switch from spy playing professor to that of dedicated professor is not one that can be made in a moment’s time,” Dumbledore said. “That is why I believe the Board's solution is both appropriate and timely.”

 _Dedicated professor._ As if he had not been dedicated to his teaching during the past two decades while he had also played the spy.

“I see.” The words were tight, clipped. 

“Severus,” Dumbledore began again, this time letting a small (and no doubt calculated, Snape thought to himself) measure of concern and pity creep into his voice. “You needn’t treat this as a punishment. You have been one of our most hardworking agents during the war. If anyone is deserving of a period of rest, it is you. You may find that a brief spell away from Hogwarts will change your outlook entirely.”

“I daresay it will,” he said softly. If Dumbledore noticed either the venom or the threat in the words, he gave no sign of it.

“As to the exact terms of your sabbatical, the council has requested that you absent yourself for the first two terms of the upcoming year. A substitute has been found to take your lessons, so you needn’t worry in that regard.”

And that was that. His fate had been decided before he even knew that there was any question as to its direction. He stood, and stiffly bid the Headmaster goodbye.

That had been more than twenty years ago. He had not returned to Hogwarts since.

He had not intended to abandon Hogwarts for good that afternoon - far from it. The wizarding world was the only world he knew. And more to the point, no pureblooded wizard in his right mind - the insane head of the Weasley brood aside - would ever consider mixing with _Muggles._ Not that he’d had any real experience with the creatures himself, but it was common knowledge that they were uneducated, unsophisticated, rustic, and led a generally miserable existence.

He’d spent the first few weeks of his forced exile in the small flat he let overlooking Knockturn Alley, reading and fine tuning the more experimental potions he dared not work on in his quarters within Hogwarts, emerging on rare occasions to purchase reagents or more infrequently, food. 

It was during one of these forays that he first began to notice the whispers, the quickly averted gazes, the shopkeep at Goad & Co. (Purveyors of Fine Dry Goods since 74 AD) glancing askance at him when he thought Snape was not looking. The combined effect was to make him shorter and sharper with everyone he happened to encounter during his trips beyond his threshold. He was as much a war hero as Dumbledore, the Weasley brood, the werewolf, or even that disgusting brat Potter. _Especially_ Potter, who had done nothing of use for a decade during which Snape had risked his life daily.

And ultimately, he had Potter to thank for the whispers, the glances, the glares. He had no doubt that it was Potter's slavish admirers and advocates who had called for his removal in the first place, and all because he did not fall on bended knee at the boy's feet. He was sure his removal was the source of the whispers and strange looks, and that it provided hours of amusement for his detractors whenever they saw him out and about in Diagon Alley. 

And the few encounters with those did not engage in such activities - Grubbly Plank, who was doing freelance veterinary work, or Pomfrey, who was required by wizarding law to pick up the more volatile medicinal reagents personally - only served to remind him that he would not be returning to Hogwarts for the start of the school year. 

He tried to leave his flat as infrequently as possible. 

It was by sheer chance that he came to realise that news of his 'sabbatical' was only one of the causes of the whispers. The other reason was so glaringly obvious that he should have realised it immediately; that he had not was a testament to how years of living under Dumbledore's thumb had dulled his wits.

The majority of Diagon Alley's wizards thought he had returned to the Dark. 

A conversation overheard in Et. Al. Chymista Ltd, a small, out of the way shop specialising in unusual reagents and bases, had finally appraised him of this fact. He had been deep in perusal of a grimy shelf filled with an assortment of distilled werewyrm essences when the shop door slammed open. Moving to the head of the aisle to glare at whomever had been responsible for the disturbance, he was startled to hear one of the customers mention his name. He slipped back into the shadows cast by the tall shelves and covertly observed the customers: two middle aged witches immersed in conversation about him, his ties to the Death Eaters, to Voldemort, to the Malfoys. 

"Once an apple goes bad, there isn't a spell that can set it right," one said.

"He asked for that ‘sabbatical’ this summer and then secluded himself in that den of his, brewing potions day and night, and it would turn your toes to hear what Monger at Goad's tells me he's been putting in them," said the other. "And the neighbourhood he lets his flat in! You do know he keeps a flat here in town?" 

The first witch made a small noise of negation.

"Really?" crowed the second eagerly. "Well let me tell you - it's on Wair Alley, and you'll know where _that_ is... No? Oh dear. Well, I wouldn't expect you to, truth be told, no decent sort knows it. It runs right onto Knockturn Alley--"

"No!" gasped the first witch.

"Indeed it does," said the second. "And I'm a Crumple-Horned Snorkack if he hasn't gone back to the Dark, and right under Dumbledore's very nose."

"Dumbledore was always a trusting sort. Too forgiving for his own good--"

"Or anyone's..."

The first witch gave a sage nod. "I only hope the Board of Governors comes to its senses; that man should not be permitted near children. The sooner he's removed for good, the better."

The second witch made noises of agreement. "I wonder," she continued, conspiratorially lowering her voice, "what he's brewing in that flat of his."

"You may ask me personally, if you like," he'd said, emerging into the aisle with his most menacing billow of cloak. The two witches stared at him for one shocked moment, during which he recognised the younger of the two as the mother of one of his students, before shrieking and fleeing the shop. He allowed himself a moment of satisfied triumph, then grabbed the nearest bottle of werewyrm essence, slammed some Galleons onto the counter, and left the shop before the startled shopkeep could hand him his change.

His triumph that afternoon was short-lived. Word quickly spread through Diagon Alley that he had threatened two innocent witches, no, thrown _hexes_ at them, and that it wouldn't be long before he openly declared himself for the Dark. A week later, the rumours truly began to circulate - he was trying to resurrect the Dark Lord; he was trying to _become_ the next Dark Lord; he was trying to lure Hogwarts students into his flat; he already _had_ lured a few in and no one had seen them since.

It was too much. Word of this _had_ to have reached Hogwarts, Dumbledore, the members of the Order, but as far as he could see, not a single one of them was attempting to allay people's suspicions. And as much as it disgusted him, he _needed_ someone else to do it. It would have been useless for him to attempt it himself - how could _he_ set things straight when people crossed the street when they saw him, when shopkeepers would no longer speak a word to him - a few even going so far as to close up when they saw him approach. How could he possibly defend himself against such prejudice? 

It was obvious that he could not defend himself, and that nothing he could say would sway anyone's opinion. People _wanted_ to fear him. Now that the relief of the Dark Lord's defeat had dulled, they no longer had anything to truly fear, any source of gossip, and he was filling a vacuum. And those in the Order, who should have known better, who did know better, were doing nothing to help him.

Then the quill that broke the Ridgeback's back came right before the start of autumn term: an owl from Dumbledore appraising him of the material his replacement planned to cover during the first two terms of the school year, so that he might adjust his own curriculum accordingly. 

The sheer _gall_ of it sickened him. _Dumbledore expected him to go back?_ Just like that, with most of the wizards on the island convinced that he wished to be the next Dark Lord? It would have been unbearably amusing, had it only been happening to someone else. 

As the weeks wore on and the rumours grew and grew - because rumours have to grow in order to remain entertaining - his anger was slowly refined into a tight, chilling ball of fear in the pit of his stomach. Worse yet was the fact that he was powerless to resist this transformation, no matter how much he hated himself for succumbing to it. How could he possibly face them when he returned for summer term? 

People had suspected him of aligning with the Dark from the time he had first set foot in Hogwarts. So when the Dark Lord's agents had approached him, offering power and revenge for the years of abuse (and wasn't it deliciously ironic that he would finally fulfil everyone's expectations in the course of the bargain?), he hadn't waited to be asked twice.

He'd known the Dark Lord's favours came with a price, but at the time it had seemed a small sacrifice compared to the recognition - long overdue - he would gain in the trade. Of course, the price was higher than he could possibly have conceived, and it wasn't long before he'd returned to the Light, willing to endure any danger just to escape his former master. 

The Light did not accept his return without payment in the process, but he had expected that. It only made sense that they would want something in return. If people's continued mistrust and suspicion was necessary to insure the success of his work, so be it. They would understand his true role when the war was over, and then they would see him for the brave, self-sacrificing wizard that he was. Once he was finally free of his old master, he could tell the truth about the part he'd played and people would no longer treat him like a polyp of bubotuber puss beneath their shoes. And finally, finally, finally, he would receive the recognition he deserved.

Now, he had come to realise that that would never happen. He had outlived his usefulness and been cast aside.

And that was how, as the time for his return approached one day at a time, he slowly came to the resolution that he would not return to Hogwarts until they came to him. Let Dumbledore come to fetch him himself. He vowed that he would not leave his flat otherwise.

But as he lay thinking about it during one of his long nights alone (without the distraction of unruly students prowling the halls at all hours of the night or masses of poorly executed essays to mark, he was usually abed by nine), Snape came to realise that this would make him out to be nothing so much as a petulant child, sulking in a corner, and it would quite suit Dumbledore's purposes for him to appear so. 

So he was faced with two choices - either return to Hogwarts with bowed head and endure the humiliation of cravenly accepting his position back, or remain in London and endure the humiliation of Dumbledore's admonitions when he did not return.

Awareness of the third option crept upon him so gradually he was barely aware it existed. And yet, when he did allow himself to openly consider it, it seemed as if it were the only possible solution. _He need_ never _return._ It was so simple. He was an adult wizard, the war was over and he need no longer fear the Dark Master’s wrath. Why need he remain at Hogwarts? Nothing bound him there. He could just... 

Leave. 

Yet it was not such a simple matter, once he began to seriously entertain the idea. Simply strolling out of the Leaky Cauldron, never to return, was out of the question, especially with all of wizarding Britain watching his every move for any hint of suspicious behaviour. If it appeared that he was trying to flee, it would not matter where he went; word of his whereabouts would pass from wizard to wizard every time he was sighted, and with those words all possibility of true anonymity would evaporate.

Escape was still possible, but if he was to disappear, he would have to do it through _Muggle_ channels. A distasteful solution, yes, but altogether feasible. And it need not be permanent.

It was common knowledge that the Muggle world was confusing, illogical, and highly frustrating for wizards to deal with. But Snape was an adult wizard, one who had both served the Dark Lord and then helped to overthrow him... How could spending a few brief weeks as a Muggle be any sort of challenge, compared to _that?_

Of course, his perspective had been rather altered after twenty years of living as one. It struck him as ironic sometimes, that all the benefits he'd believed he possessed as a wizard had in fact been hindrances. His family name, his pureblood heritage, the patronage of the Malfoy family and later Dumbledore, his position teaching at the most highly regarded school of wizardry in the world; these things had been the very chains which made him miserable. 

He hadn’t realised it until he’d thrown them off and emerged on American soil, anonymous and completely unremarkable. When he considered it (which wasn’t often), he had to admit that he was far more satisfied with his "Muggle" life than he had been with his life as a wizard. There was a certain amount of twisted charm to the way Muggles compensated for their magically handicapped existences, and he occasionally found this amusing. Still, life as a Muggle was not without its irksome qualities, and Snape was nothing if not adept at identifying and cataloguing the various annoyances life saw fit to visit upon him. 

Today's annoyance was the confusion of the American Muggle calendar. 

By all rights, today should have been a weekday like any other, which meant that he could have left his house, briefly stopped at a few local shops and purchased his desired articles in relative peace. However, it appeared that _this_ Monday happened to be some sort of Muggle holiday, so he was forced to contend with crowds of shoppers and their whining, spoiled children as _well_ as the shoe-soaking slush and occasional icy rain that January always brought to this city.

Muggle children where always whining and carrying on whenever they appeared in public, and on this day the prominent displays of Valentine's Day candy gave them extra incentive. Snape longed for the days when a single, imperious glare would have silenced the lot of them. But the anonymity he'd sought in the Muggle world was a double-edged sword, and he knew that even his most cutting sneer was next to meaningless in a place where few people knew his name.

At least, he thought with a slight, habitual arch of an eyebrow, the decorations did not sing and carry on as did those at Hogwarts. Snape detested Valentine's Day as much - if not more - than Christmas. The festive gaiety surrounding both holidays grated equally on his nerves, but it he had always found the pink hearts and frills of the former to be more insipid than any expression of Christmas ‘cheer.’ 

Stalking into a nearby grocer's, he quickly selected his purchases and made his way through the throng of shoppers to the shortest available queue. The bored adolescent at the till swiped the items across the scanner - a peculiar sort of wand that Muggles used in all their places of commerce - and sent them down the conveyor where a second clerk waited to drop them into a bag. Snape repressed another brief upsurge of annoyance at the clerk's obvious indifference to his purchases - did the child have no idea what he planned to do with those items? - before remembering how woefully inadequate Muggle education was concerning even the most basic tenets of alchemy.

The first clerk read the total in a bored, flat voice, and Snape's fingers automatically collected the correct sum from his wallet; funny how even the strange ins and outs of overly-complicated American Muggle currency had become second nature to him. He handed the money to the adolescent with an equally bored and flat murmur of thanks, then collected his bags from the second clerk and quickly left the overheated supermarket, eager to be on his way back home. 

He did not trust his ability to play Muggle well enough to attempt acquiring an automobile (although they were utterly inferior replacements for magical travel, one would never know it, the way Muggles doted on the things). Instead, he had settled on buying a small house near enough to all the shops he frequented that walking was not a _terrible_ inconvenience. He especially enjoyed such excursions during winter, when the long wool coats he wore were comfortably reminiscent of a wizard's robes, if not half so practical. 

At least, he thought, they kept out the wind with equal utility. He certainly needed the protection today. An especially blistering gust tore its way down the street, stinging his eyes and whipping his hair about his face, and he lowered his head and hunched his parcels toward his chest.

A play of time and circumstance - if the wind hadn’t whipped his hair into his eyes at exactly that moment, if he had been carrying fewer parcels and had had a free hand to clear the offending locks from his eyes, his life as an anonymous Muggle would never have come to a close in quite such a hideously dramatic fashion.

Unlike its magical counterparts, Muggle transportation was limited by physical and temporal restraints so that a discrete location in space and time could not be simultaneously occupied by two separate entities.

Snape never saw the car coming, nor could he remember the impact after he awoke, hours later, in the hospital.

The disorienting terror of finding himself alone in a vast, clinical whiteness was something he doubted he would ever forget. He was conscious for a good quarter hour before the nurse found him, awake, trembling, staring wide-eyed and unblinkingly at the ceiling above him. 

_It had all been a dream. The Dark Lord had not lost. And he had finally captured Snape._

_This was the Albus._

Those fifteen minutes had spiraled on endlessly. Snape was so sure of his own damnation that when the nurse did arrive, he didn't believe that she was real. She was obviously a phantasm sent to raise his hopes of escape before shattering them utterly. Snape had watched the Dark Lord torment his captives with similar ploys far too many times to be deceived now that his turn had arrived. 

It wasn’t until she called _his_ name down the hallway that he began to doubt. It couldn't be. Potter... Potter was the Dark Master's personal torment; it would not occur to him to inflict the child on others. 

Slowly, barely allowing himself to hope, he attempted to struggle into a sitting position before a sharp, stabbing pain near his elbow arrested the movement. He looked down in horror to find a needle and tube _connected to his arm._ He was in a Muggle hospital, and the woman had said Potter's name. 

It wasn't the Dark Lord who had caught him. It was Potter.

He cast around frantically for some means of escape. Twenty years ago the boy had been making noises about becoming an Auror. And what did Aurors do if not hunt Dark wizards? Never mind that Snape was not a Dark wizard; his past and the circumstances of his ... departure would be damning evidence to anyone who cared to question his motives. Moreover, whatever curse had struck him had struck him hard; Potter was not playing games. 

There was only one door in the room. The window. Could he make it out the window? Steady, measured footfalls echoed down the corridor outside, each one as loud as a thundercrack to Snape's ears. The nurse moved out of the doorway, making room for...

At first he thought there’d been some sort of horrible mistake; it was a man, not Potter, who emerged through the doorway. It took a moment for Snape’s frantic brain to understand. 

It was Potter. Potter as he appeared now, twenty years after Snape had seen him last. There were the same delicate features, only hardened into manhood. The same unruly hair, longer and more unkempt than ever. The same fey green eyes behind the same thick glasses, only the power of their glare was stronger. He’d finally put on height, Snape noted bemusedly. And his shoulders were broader. 

He had the air of a man who was to be reckoned with.

A wave of animal fear moved through the pit of Snape's stomach. He was vaguely aware that the nurse was talking. 

“...cousin is a _very lucky man.”_

She turned her attention from Potter to him, flashing a light in his eyes, peppering him all the while with a string of absurd, disjointed questions until a doctor shouldered her aside and took over. 

Snape had never been more helpless than he was at that moment, lying prone in a hospital bed, completely at Potter's mercy.

And yet, Potter made no overt threats, though he kept shooting dark glances at Snape whenever he could. But for the most part he appeared to be listening intently to the nurse.

Snape's head was pounding and he was beginning to suspect some sort of narcotic had been administered to him, but he forced himself to concentrate through the haze. The physician was still poking at him, and Snape did his best to listen to the low, ongoing conversation occurring between Potter and the nurse.

"... _extremely_ lucky," she repeated. "Accidents like this often prove fatal, or at least severely debilitating. I don't want to speak too soon, but it looks as though your cousin got off extremely easily."

Cousin?

"I see," Potter murmured, green eyes darting once more toward Snape's direction. "But he is OK?" Potter's voice was a perfect imitation of a concerned relative's. 

"The prognosis is good, especially for an injury of this magnitude," said the nurse. "I've never seen someone come out of a point blank hit-and-run this unscathed. It's almost like he started regenerating after the impact."

 _That's because I_ did, _you idiotic cow,_ he wanted to scream. The physician was gently fingering the back of his skull; it was excruciatingly painful. 

"...warn you that he isn't in the clear yet," the nurse continued. "It can take several days before the effects of a severe concussion fully manifest. That's why we recommended that Mr Snape remain in the hospital for further observation."

Potter nodded slowly. "Certainly," he said.

The physician finished his prodding and made a few notations on his chart before straightening. "Well, I must say, Mr Snape, you are an incredibly lucky individual."

Snape desired nothing so much as to fell the next person who referred to him as 'lucky' with the Killing Curse.

The doctor was still talking; Snape had best give him his full attention. 

"I've never seen someone escape from such an apparently severe accident with so few dents." The doctor was trying for a reassuring tone, but Snape would not be reassured until Potter revealed what he was playing at. 

"We're going to keep you here for the night. Nurses will be in to check on you periodically, but if the need arises, there's a button beside the bed--" the doctor motioned, and Snape's eyes followed automatically, "--do not hesitate to press it if you feel ill, or need any help at all. Any questions? Concerns?"

Snape gave a brief shake of his head.

"Well then," said the physician, with a strained smile he must have assumed to be reassuring. "Visiting hours end at nine, so I'll turn you over to your cousin before my staff removes him." And with this he shot an even more ingratiating smile to the nurse before the two of them left the room, closing the door behind them.

It was a few moments before he could meet Potter's eyes, but when he did, he was able to hold them. 

"What are you doing here, Snape?" Potter hissed. 

"I might ask the same of you." The effort needed to keep his voice from trembling was exhausting.

"Don't play games with me," Potter snapped, though he kept his voice down. This gave Snape a brief burst of hope - wherever he was, the boy was worried about alerting others to his hostility. So these people were not Potter's allies. They didn't know who Snape was. 

Then he noticed that Potter's right hand was clenched around something hidden in the inside pocket of the jacket he wore. All sense of advantage disappeared _Of course he'll have his wand, you bloody fucking idiot._ Snape could only hope that Potter was not recently arrived in the country.

Potter advanced on the bed, shadow falling over Snape like a shroud. "What are you doing here," he repeated.

Snape's rational mind was screaming at him not to incite the man, but he'd be damned if he let _Potter_ intimidate him. 

"What does it look like I'm doing, you idiot boy? I have apparently suffered some sort of traumatic injury--"

"A car ran you over," Potter said emotionlessly.

"--and awoken to find myself strapped to a hospital bed."

Potter loomed another step closer. At this distance, Snape could see that he was clearly incensed: nostrils flared, eyes dilated, an angry flush splashed across his cheeks. They locked gazes again and held them interminably until the nurse returned, knocking briefly at the door to announce her presence before entering. She smiled kindly, but firmly.

"Time to say goodnight, Mr Potter," she said. "It's already fifteen past. You really need to be heading home. We'll keep Mr Snape safe until tomorrow."

"All right," said Potter. "Just--" Two decades later and the brat was still sickeningly adept at playing the puppy-eyed boy. "‘S just... I'm worried about him," he said, almost apologetically. "Just five more minutes?"

The nurse sighed, but she was a kind woman at heart. "All right," she said finally. "But you'd better be gone by the time I get back from my rounds."

"Thank you," Potter said earnestly.

The tension returned full-force as soon as she shut the door behind her. 

"Well," Potter said finally. "I'll see you bright and early tomorrow. Try anything before then and I'll kill you." He'd learnt to inject quite a bit of threat into his tone since Snape had last spoken to him. 

"We may as well end this farce now, Potter," he spat. "We both know that I am not going to remain in this hospital, and that knowing that, you are going to wait outside for me to emerge. So why don't we both exit together, like the ‘cousins’ we supposedly are."

"You're to stay here for observa--"

"Have you forgotten that I am a _wizard_ , Mr Potter? As the nurse has already noted, I will be completely recovered well before any Muggle could ever heal. The only thing of danger to me now is the drugs they are so clumsily administering through this tube." _And you._

Potter's jaw tightened. "Let's go," he said.

Snape was not as steady on his feet as he would have liked, but he managed to handle himself through sheer force of will. He was acutely aware of the razor's edge he was walking, and any weakness shown to Potter would no doubt be used against him tenfold.

Snape had been comatose upon his arrival and had no idea of the hospital's layout, which forced him to rely on Potter as a guide. Potter knew it as well, and did his best to outpace Snape, forcing him to trail several paces behind. 

Still, Potter appeared to know where he was going as he led Snape unerringly down a myriad of anonymous, brightly-lit corridors to the reception desk. There, Snape arranged for his discharge and the return of his effects, managing the protesting receptionist with a chilly glare.

And then he was out on the street, with Potter his only company.

They stood for several moments, surrounded by the rumble of freeway traffic and the whine of the freezing night wind. 

"Start moving, Snape," Potter said when it became apparent that Snape was in no hurry to go anywhere. Years as an Auror had added a frightening amount of authority to his voice.

"To where?"

"Your house. And don't think about trying to escape from me," he added before Snape was able to form a protestation. "Of the two of us, I'm the only one with a wand."

Snape started to demand how Potter knew that for a fact before he realised; of course Potter would know - they had taken all Snape's possessions from him when he'd been admitted to the hospital, and Potter, having cursed him, would had been present to watch them do so. 

Snape, of course, had stopped carrying his own wand years ago. It made little sense to do so in this country, although if Potter was still too newly-arrived...

"No tricks," Potter continued in that same steely tone. Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Became-An-Auror was fully as intimidating as any of the Aurors who had interrogated Snape during his defection to the Light. He despised the boy for it. 

"No, Potter. No tricks," he said, as ironically as possible. So Potter was not bent on vigilante justice, at least not yet. Perhaps he really did intend to bring Snape back to Britain to face... Merlin knew what. Or perhaps he merely meant to kill Snape in his own house, far from any Muggle witnesses. 

Snape wheeled about and stalked off into the night, wishing he was wearing his old cloak for effect. He did not look behind to see if Potter was following. No doubt he was. The wind was a cold as ever, but not as cold as the burning rage that had settled in Snape's stomach.

Who did Potter think he was? Two decades. Potter had been on his trail for two decades. Had it occurred to no one that if Snape had truly been working for the Dark he would have made his move before now? The Dark Lord himself had only waited eight years before reemerging after his first defeat. 

_He wanted nothing to do with the Dark!_ He had given up everything he had, time and again, to prove that. When Snape first set foot on the Hogwarts Express half a century ago, the senior Potter and his sycophants had branded him a Dark wizard, and the rest of wizarding Britain had been more than happy to follow blindly in their wake. And now, the son had come to finish what the father had started. 

He stalked down the streets with Potter trailing after him like some hellish Eurydice, and tried not to think of what awaited him - interrogation, Veritaserum, Azkaban. Never mind that he deserved none of it. He had already been damned by the wizarding world. How disgusting that they had sent Potter as their executioner. 

Or perhaps Potter had come on his own? Was the bastard truly capable of letting a baseless vendetta survive for so long? 

Turning down a final side street, Snape brought them to a halt before his doorstep and turned to Potter, hoping his glare was as cold and remote as the Auror's. 

Potter made an impatient gesture with his wandless hand. "Move, Snape." He made Snape's name sound like a curse.

"By all means," he hissed, so low he could barely hear his own voice. "Guests first."

Confusion flitted across Potter's features. "You live _here?_ " he said in disbelief.

Feverish rage burned through Snape's mind. Not content with tracking Snape across the span of two decades to attack him in his new existence, Potter would stoop so low as to insult his _house?_ He'd no doubt Potter's house, spoiled as the brat was, was a castle by comparison.

"You were expecting a manorial estate?" He tried to make his voice remote and scornful, but realised too late that it was heated and angry.

Potter noticed as well. 

"I expected something to match your bloated opinion of yourself, yes."

Snape bared his teeth and whirled to stalk up the steps and unlock the door.

"After you," he snarled.

One would have thought the boy had never set foot inside a Muggle residence, the way he gawked and peered about him at the living-room with its low ceiling and sparse furniture.

"Make yourself at home," he hissed, and stalked into the kitchen.

Predictably, Potter trailed after him.

"What are you doing, Snape?"

Potter's meaning was obvious, but Snape saw no reason to grant the bastard any concessions. He removed a canister of teabags from an upper cabinet and set the kettle on the stove. "That should be painfully obvious, Potter, even to someone of your limited mental faculties."

Potter closed the distance between them until they were standing mere inches apart. "I'm warning you, Snape."

He whirled to face Potter, almost nose-to-nose with the man. "Oh, indeed? Of what?"

Potter's lips drew back across his teeth, unnaturally white in the murky kitchen light. "Fuck you, Snape," he whispered.

Potter's sudden burst of temper emboldened him. It seemed the brat wasn't as in control of the situation as he'd first appeared. "Not. Bloody. Likely. Now be a good boy and summon the lights." He motioned to the light switch by the kitchen door. 

He knew in an instant that he'd gone too far. Potter's eyes hardened. "My pleasure," he said, and withdrew his wand from his coat. Snape shut his eyes, steeling himself for the coming curse. So it had come to this; he was to die at Potter's hand on his kitchen floor.

" _Oparo!_ " Potter shouted. 

Snape flinched as the kitchen filled with the blinding light of the curse. 

He opened his eyes, panting and clammy with sweat, to find Potter, a superior expression on his face, with his wand pointed at the light switch. 

"And you wanted to teach _Defence Against the Dark Arts?_ " he sneered.

Black, scathing rage filled Snape until he could barely breathe. _Just like the father_ , his mind whispered. _Just like the father. You were always too slow for him too._

"Brew two cups, while you're at it," Potter said as he seated himself at the kitchen table.

Snape turned wordlessly, automatically, back to the stove. He felt Potter's eyes on his back as palpably as a physical touch. _Don't think about it,_ he told himself. _You are older. More intelligent. A better wizard, even if no one save you ever realised it. You are on your own soil and the Potter has nothing on you. Now **act like it.**_

The thoughts chased each other through Snape's mind as he set about brewing the tea, hating the way his hands shook, hating how movements practised through twenty long years had become as awkward and faulty as they'd been when he'd first tried preparing tea in the Muggle fashion.

Damn Potter for coming here. Damn him for doing this to him.

 _Why don't you just have done with me?_ his mind raged.

At long last the tea was brewed, and he set the cups and pot on the table without spilling any, although the telling clatter of china gave him away.

He took a seat across from Potter, raised his cup to his lips, and forced some tea down past the thickness in his throat. 

Potter didn't touch his cup.

"What are you doing here, Snape?" he demanded again.

Snape shut his eyes. Potter's voice had lost the open animosity it had carried when he'd tricked Snape into thinking he'd cursed him, but that meant very little. Potter had spent decades tracing him when Snape had thought he was untraceable; he wasn't going to give up. Not now, not ever.

"I should think that was obvious. I live here." He told the truth, but only because stalling or lying would ultimately make no difference. Potter was as convinced of his guilt as any other wizard was sure to be, and he would give the truth as little credence as he would any excuse Snape might offer.

"Here?" Potter asked incredulously.

Snape arched his eyebrows. "Yes, here, Potter. Or do you honestly believe some shocked Muggle will return shortly to find us occupying his kitchen?"

"Snape," Potter warned, raising his wand.

Snape threw up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of placation. 

"All right," said Potter finally. "You live here. Why?"

Why? Because he could not bear to live as a wizard. But as the likelihood of Potter accepting that explanation did not bear thinking about, he remained silent.

"Look, either you tell me now, or..." Potter let his voice trail into nothing, allowing Snape's imagination to fill in the alternative. 

Which it did, in admirable detail.

So it was to be Azkaban, or worse. He had no delusions; he knew firsthand how the Ministry treated those it wanted put away, whether they were innocent or not. Funny that his fate should be the same as that bastard Black's. 

His life here was finished, and he was fortunate that it had lasted as long as it had. But that did not mean he need make anything easier on the one who had come to end it. Let his executioner work for his keep.

"I do not desire a dress rehearsal before I face the Auror Court," he said at last.

A startled expression flitted across Potter's features. Had he really expected that Snape wouldn't understand what fate lay in store for him? Or perhaps his directness had offended Potter's Gryffindor sense of propriety. Snape smiled bitterly. How long had it been since he'd thought of anyone in terms of House allegiance? 

Potter regarded him with a measuring look. "Have you done something to deserve facing the Auror Court?" he asked.

"NO!" he shouted, irritation momentarily overriding caution. He was completely innocent, but even if he were not, did Potter honestly think such a simple question, so innocently posed, would induce him to admit something he did not intend to?

He worked to catch his breath, not aware that he had lost it in the first place, and stared back at Potter, willing the telling flush to leave his cheeks. "Now," he attempted in a more rational tone, "Either place me under arrest or _kindly_ ," he emphasised the word, "leave my house."

Potter was still subjecting him to that appraising look. "I'm not to do either," he said finally.

"What?" 

"I'm to put you under Aurorial Observation. By order of the Auror Court," he added, as if it were an afterthought.

"Potter," he said, placing both his hands on the table and half-rising from his chair. "You and I both know there is no such thing as 'Aurorial Observatio--'"

"Wrong, Snape." The commanding tone was back.

"Oh, please, Mr Potter. Kindly remember that I have had a great deal of experience with the Aurors and their procedures, and there is no such thing--"

" _Was_ no such thing, Snape," he said. Like Snape himself, Potter had learnt how to command the attention of his audience through his voice alone. "In case you've forgotten, twenty years have passed since you had any great deal of contact with Aurors."

Snape stilled, half-crouching over the table. His first instinct was to distrust Potter's declaration; after all, the Aurors were one of the oldest institutions in a society that instinctively resisted any change. On the other hand, Potter seemed damned sure of himself. If nothing else, Snape had lost ground by inadvertently reminding Potter of his long exile from wizarding society.

Potter continued: "Voldemort's dead, Snape. The rules have changed." 

"How. So." The words came grudgingly, haltingly, from his lips.

Potter leaned back in his seat, clearly relishing his role as educator. "Thanks to me, Voldemort's gone and he isn't coming back. But that doesn't mean that there aren't elements still working for the Dark. They just lack a focal point."

"Anyone suspected of leaning toward the Dark is placed under 'Observation' by one or more Aurors until his innocence is proven," Snape finished for him.

Potter arched a regal eyebrow over the rim of his glasses. "Exactly."

"Tell me, Potter, what if I don't fancy allowing an Auror... or you," he spoke as if the two were mutually exclusive, "to observe my personal behaviour?"

"Any attempt to flee or otherwise obstruct the business of a Ministry-appointed Auror will be construed as admission of guilt," Potter quoted. "You'll be sent to Azkaban faster than you can draw your wand."

Thanks to past experience, Snape had an intimate knowledge of just how arbitrary the Ministry could be while dispensing its idea of justice. The clause Potter had just quoted at him sounded entirely too plausible. "For how long will I have the pleasure of your company?" he gritted out.

Potter smiled grimly. "As long as is necessary."

They had both gone to bed not long after, but it was nearly dawn before Snape managed to fall asleep, tossing and turning in his bed. After the adrenaline had worn off, his empty stomach made its presence felt. _Potter sent you to bed without your dinner,_ his mind taunted. _As if you were an unruly child._

Yet there was nothing Snape could do about it. He fully believed Potter's proclamations about Aurorial Observation, as well as the dire consequences of violating them; he wasn't about to be caught in any situation where he might appear to be attempting an escape. 

If Potter caught him sneaking into his own kitchen? Admitting the truth - that he was only after a belated dinner - would merely give Potter one more humiliation to add to his arsenal. 

So it was with great relief that Snape awoke to find that it was ten in the morning, and he could go about fixing himself a meal without facing any potential ridicule.


	2. Chapter 2

Likely it was the whistling of the teapot that woke Potter. At any rate, the Auror stumbled down the stairs not long after Snape had seated himself at the table and set about eating his toast and jam. 

To Snape's infinite satisfaction, the dark circles under the boy's eyes indicated that he'd slept as uneasily as Snape.

Potter stood for a moment in the kitchen doorway, yawning hugely. He looked down at his rumpled clothing in mild dismay - Snape noted happily that _he_ at least was wearing a proper set of fresh clothing, by virtue of this being his house, and took immense satisfaction in that fact.

Although he didn't say anything, he let his eyes rake the Auror from head to foot, taking in Potter's scruffy trousers and vastly wrinkled Muggle-style polo shirt. 

"You could have at least made me breakfast," Potter said peevishly.

"Oh, I didn't dare wake you," he responded with venomous sweetness. He'd come to a conclusion that morning, while the bastard was still asleep. If Potter was here on official duties as an Auror, then he was as trapped with Snape as Snape was with him, for all that this assignment might be the fulfilment of Potter's long-standing vendetta. It was a revelation, and Snape fully intended to make Potter's stay as uncomfortable as possible without pushing the man into arresting him out of sheer frustration.

Potter treated him to an icy glare from those moss-green eyes before stalking over to the countertop. He paused, then shot Snape a surprised look from beneath his unruly fringe.

"You cook like a Muggle."

Snape's eyes swept over his kitchen - the refrigerator; the countertop appliances; the grease-spattered stovetop, yet to be cleaned; the dishes drying in the rack by the sink. "Obviously."

"Why?"

Why indeed? Potter appeared genuinely puzzled by this belated observation. _Fine Auror you make_ , Snape longed to tell him, _if such trivial matters throw you off balance._

"Why not just use magic?" Potter continued. "It's easier."

"I fail to see what any of this has to do with my suitability or lack thereof for a cell in Azkaban," he said, and met Potter's eyes with a sardonic arch of an eyebrow.

"Fine," Potter grumbled, rather surprising Snape that he'd conceded the point at all. "Where do you keep the bread?"

Snape motioned to drawer near the sink and returned his attention to his meal.

"Mr Potter," he said after a few minutes had elapsed. "As it appears that you intend to eat all of my bread and a good deal of my fruit as well, what compensation I can expect to receive for housing you here during the course of your 'Observation?'"

"The fact that your innocence is established beyond doubt should be compensation enough," said Potter archly.

"So the Ministry allows its officials to live like kings on the backs of the unfortunates it chooses to investigate?" he said through gritted teeth.

Potter looked as if he were about to protest Snape's defamation of the Ministry's methods, then paused and reconsidered. "Yeah," he said. "That's about it. Not much you can do about it either way."

There was nothing Snape could say in response to that, so he had to content himself with ignoring the bastard's presence to the best of his ability, hoping that Potter felt the chilly silence in the kitchen intensely.

"All right, then," said Potter finally, rising from his chair. "Let's get this over with." Snape noticed he left his dirty dishes where they sat on the table.

"Get what over with? I can assure you I'll make a dreadfully dull subject for interrogation." It was true - Potter could administer all the Veritaserum and Truthspeaking spells he desired; he'd never wrangle any sort of confession out of Snape. Snape had nothing to confess.

Still, the thought of being forced to speak of his reasons for leaving, his reasons for becoming a Muggle, left a cold sheen of sweat on his palms. He swallowed around the thickness in his throat.

"Oh, I'm sure of that," Potter said dryly. "But we aren't doing an interrogation, Snape. Not until we've finished the Investigation."

Investigation? What was the bastard on about?

Potter was still talking. His voice had taken on a measured, didactic quality; Snape knew he was reciting Ministry law again. "You may remain present if you wish; however, any attempt to obstruct or otherwise interfere with the proceedings will be construed as an admission of wrongdoing.

"If you are currently in possession of any illicit items, including but not limited to: grimories; contraband wands; necrophilic paraphenalia; magical creatures or parts thereof; reagents; potions; potions bases; or other magical items prohibited from public ownership by International Wizarding Law, declare them now." Potter paused. " _Do_ you have any illicit potions?" he asked. He sounded slightly curious, if a little bored.

"No," Snape replied through clenched teeth. Potter looked him deep in the eye and then continued with his recitation.

It appeared that Potter was preparing to search his house from the foundations to the eaves for any sign of wrongdoing. Snape had spent a sleepless night preparing himself for all sorts of humiliations at the bastard's hands, but this had not been one of them. 

This was, in some ways, worse than Veritaserum. The potion would have compelled Snape to tell the truth, yet the truth he told would be nothing less than the truth as he saw it. His possessions could not speak for themselves. Potter was free to draw what conclusions he would from them.

No, that was not it at all. Under the effects of Veritaserum, Snape would only have been forced to give Potter the answers to explicit questions. But now, Potter was going to see the whole of Snape's life, defined by his material possessions, spread out before him. 

It was a violation.

Potter had stopped talking some time ago. A small smirk was toying at the corners of his mouth. "Ready, Snape?"

He schooled his face into its blankest and most imposing mask and said simply, "Yes."

"All right."

Potter started in the kitchen, making quick work of the cabinets, refrigerator, and pantry. They went next to the basement, which was unfinished and contained little besides the furnace, water heater, washer and dryer. 

"Do you use these?" Potter asked curiously.

"No, Potter. They are merely here for ornamentation." A small part of him thrilled to hear his former imperious tones creeping back into his voice.

"Watch yourself, Snape," said Potter edgily, and the thrill evaporated.

Then it was back up the stairs to the living-room. Here, Snape began to feel much more nervous. Although the room was sparsely furnished by Muggle standards, it was the heart of Snape's home, for here he kept his books. They lined all four walls, except where the shelving was broken by the front window, the fireplace, the desk, and the doors to the kitchen and hallway. 

It didn't appear at first glance that there was much in the room to search, but Snape was too well-versed in Auror methodology to believe that Potter, Auror that he was, would ignore the books.

And true to his expectations, Potter spent the better part of that afternoon pulling his books off the shelves one by one, flipping through them, casting spells of revealing and magic detection, carefully reading all the notes Snape had scrawled in the margins. 

Snape found the experience both harrowing and exhausting. He had never, _never_... Even while living under the close scrutiny of Dumbledore and the Order during the first War, he had never...

After his return to the Light, his rooms at Hogwarts had been enchanted so that the presence of every magical object within was detectable to Dumbledore and the Order, should they wish to be made aware of them, but no one had ever set foot inside his chambers. They had never been searched. No one had ever seen where Snape lived, his private possessions...

He had been able to take whatever he wanted into and out of his rooms, and so long as the items weren’t magical, no-one but him knew that they existed. But now... His personality had never been laid bare to such an extent. Each book told Potter more about him, the parts of himself he didn't dare show to others, and Potter had his hands all over them.

He felt as though he couldn’t breathe.

Standing and watching Potter laboriously examine each book was exhausting, so he sat down on his sofa and stared blankly at nothing. It started to rain, small droplets pattering on the window at his back. The sound alternately soothed him and set his teeth on edge.

“It’s five o’clock.” 

Potter’s voice startled him as he sat, not sleeping but very much lost in his own morbid thoughts. 

“You will one day realise, Potter, that time will not stop at your behest.”

Potter ignored the comment. “You aren’t going to have dinner?”

“I’ve no appetite.” 

“Oh,” Potter said. And then, “These are all Muggle books.” 

“Your command of the obvious astounds.”

Potter was silent for a long moment. “You don’t have to be unpleasant, Snape.” His voice was bitter, reproachful.

“Don’t I?” he snarled, bile rising in his throat. “Tell me, Potter, how am I to react when you invade my life for the second time? It wasn't enough that you--” He broke off suddenly, panting. He should not have reminded Potter of that day and the Pensieve. 

“It isn’t as if I _wanted_ to do this.” Potter’s voice hitched strangely on the words.

“Oh, I’m sure. But tell me,” he spat, “given the circumstances, of the two of us, who would you rather be?”

Potter stood silently, a dangerous expression on his face. He looked for all the world like a cornered animal, although by rights it was Snape who should be feeling so. Former student and two decades Snape’s junior though he may be, Potter was the one who had both authority and the entire weight of wizarding society at his back. He was the Auror, the hero, the official. Snape was, and had always been, the outcast.

Yet it was evidence of the bastard’s disgusting sense of self-importance that he looked just as angry and persecuted as Snape felt himself. 

“Fine,” said Potter softly. “We can finish this after I eat.”

Snape waited until Potter had left the room to sink slowly back onto the sofa. He was absolutely exhausted, and he knew he must look drawn and deathly pale. He could hear Potter moving about in his kitchen, slamming cabinet doors, rattling china, stomping about on the linoleum. 

He could care less about the brat’s temper. He was finding it difficult to care about anything at this point. 

The noises stopped as Potter presumably set about eating his meal. The shadows in the room deepened as the winter sun set behind its veil of cloud. One by one the streetlights came on; their illumination sent Snape’s shadow shafting across the worn carpet. 

The silence was complete, save for the occasional noise of a passing car.

Potter reemerged in the doorway. “Have you even bothered to move?”

“I wouldn’t want you to think I was concealing evidence while you dined in my kitchen, none the wiser.” By now it should have been clear, even to an imbecile such as Potter, that there was no evidence to hide, nor had their ever been. 

“How much is left?”

“What?” He no longer tried to disguise the weariness in his voice

“Your house,” Potter said testily. “How much of it is left?”

He shrugged slightly. “The garage. The bedrooms - mine and yours. The study. The upstairs bathroom. The storage space.”

“Then lets get them over with,” said Potter grimly.

The horror of having Potter rifle through his clothing and toiletries paled in comparison to the Auror’s inspection of his books, and so the rest of the investigation seemed to pass fairly quickly, by comparison.

Either that, or Snape had descended into the lazy calm of shock. He thought it highly likely, given the circumstances. Then he wondered with amused detachment whether someone in shock could be aware of that fact at all, and if they were, was it really shock?

At the very least, Potter made mercifully short work of the guest room and bathroom. The study gave him pause, as Snape had known it would. The room was comparatively large for such a small house, but contained very little aside from several large, locked chests sat at intervals around the floor, well away from the windows. 

Potter shoved past Snape, knelt by the nearest chest and began running through the standard Auror arsenal of revealing spells and trap-detection incantations. Something seemed to surprise him, and he stopped and began the investigation anew. His suspicions confirmed, he moved to each of the other chests in turn and investigated them as well.

He looked up after he'd finished with the last one, light reflecting off of the lenses of his glasses so that Snape found it difficult to look him in the eye. "These chests are all warded," he said, as Snape had predicted he would. "They're the only things in the house with spells on them."

"I don't know how I managed myself, Potter, before you were here to keep me informed as to the state of my material belongings," he said icily. 

"What's in them, Snape?" Potter returned in equally icy tones.

"Why don't you open them and find out?" he sneered.

"I'd much rather have you do it for me."

Snape realised with a sudden stomach-twisting lurch that Potter had drawn his wand. He couldn't read Potter's eyes, thanks to the light reflecting from the lenses, but judging by the steadiness of his hand and the coldness of his voice, he was deadly serious. Once again, Snape had pushed too far. Potter was an Auror; he would have easily identified the ward on those chests. It was not an elaborate spell, its effects merely making it physically impossible to open the chests without the proper key. A simple _Alohamora_ was all that was needed to open them by magical means. That was all Snape had intended to convey with his words, but of course Potter must think the ward was there to disguise some sort of trap.

As would any wizard, let alone an Auror alone in the house of a man he did not trust.

"Very well," he whispered, withdrawing the key from his clothing. Potter started as he put his hand into the pocket; the boy was obviously expecting some sort of magical attack. Snape wondered how he'd react upon finally discovering that Snape was essentially incapable of one, but quickly dropped that line of thought. It, like so much else these past twenty-four hours, did not bear thinking about.

He stalked about the room, unlocking each chest and throwing the lids open so that their contents were exposed - heaps of Knuts, Sickles, Galleons, all shimmering in the powerful illumination of the room's steady electric lighting.

Potter was struck dumb by the sight. Snape took a slight, twisted satisfaction at the idiotic expression on the man's face. Surely Potter had twice as much, fifty times as much money, and yet he was staring at Snape's chests as if he'd stumbled upon buried treasure.

"You- you're rich," he said finally.

Snape said nothing in response, and his silence seemed to break Potter free of his fascination. "Where did you get all this money, Snape?" he demanded, voice hardening. Potter's suspicions were plain on his face - bribery, murder, extortion of the sort the Dark Lord had been fond of committing during his rise to power.

"I assure you, it is my own money, Potter, and I came by it all quite legally."

Potter had his wand back up, and judging by the look in his eyes, he was less than convinced. "If you're lying to me--" he began.

"I am fully aware of the consequences," Snape snapped back. "And so I am not wasting my time trying to lie. The money is mine."

"Then why the spells?"

"To prevent Muggles from disturbing their contents."

Potter's sceptical expression did not falter.

"Oh, use your head, boy!" he snapped, irritated and throwing caution to the winds. "A first year could easily dispel these wards with naught but his wand and determination. Do you really think I would be so careless, were I guarding the contents of these chests from other wizards?"

Potter blinked, obviously stymied by Snape's logic. "You're worried about Muggle burglars?" he said stupidly.

"You don't believe Muggle burglars would be interested in carrying off gold and silver?" he responded. That he was more worried about the possible consequences of rumours concerning the chests' contents than he was potential theft, he left unsaid. Potter would most likely be unaware of how interested the Muggle government would be to hear that he had chests of odd gold and silver coins hidden in his house.

"There's nothing in the chests but money?" asked Potter finally.

"You are more than free to empty them all and find out for yourself," he responded. It was inevitable that Potter would help himself to the money; Snape reckoned he might as well encourage the man to get it over with sooner rather than later. 

Potter stared at him for a long, hard moment. "Fine," he said, grudgingly. "Lock them up and replace the wards." 

Now it was Snape's turn to stare. Was the man being serious? He was alone in Snape's house with a small fortune at his fingertips and all the authority and credibility of an Auror at his back, while Snape lacked any comparable advantage. There were no witnesses. And yet Potter was not going to take any?

Anyone would have done that.

No, any _Slytherin_ would have done that. But Potter had been a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors prided themselves on their alleged honour. If Potter were to take the money, he would lose all ability to lord his mantle of superiority over Snape.

Snape had never been more thankful for that misguided devotion to morality. His existence depended on those Knuts, Sickles, and Galleons. 

Once the all the chests were locked and re-warded so that nothing save Snape's key could open them, he led Potter back down the hallway. Potter made as if to pause at the door to the spare bedroom, but Snape swept by him.

"You will have examined that room in great detail last night," he said. He raised an impatient hand as Potter made as if to protest. 

"Do you take me for an idiot, Potter?" he asked, his voice the barest of silky whispers. And then, when Potter grudgingly shook his head no, "Then refrain from treating me as one. As you will doubtlessly have blasted the room with every spell, charm, incantation, and cantrip known to an Auror, there is no reason for us to pretend that you need do it again today."

Potter's lips tightened, but he made no further comment. The Auror investigated the bathroom quickly, then moved on to Snape's bedroom. He made an especially long and thorough search of the room, as Snape had known he would, and so he was well prepared for the humiliation of letting Potter handle his clothing, his bedclothes, and his other necessary articles.

It was one in the morning when Potter paused his investigation of Snape's nightstand. Heavy circles ringed his eyes. "All right," he said. "Enough. I'm going to bed."

"And my garage?" Snape said silkily. "You're certain you'll be able to sleep without knowing what Dark abominations may lie concealed within?"

The open hatred in Potter's glare stunned any further comments from his lips. Snape returned the look with equal venom until Potter wordlessly left the room and proceeded into the bathroom. Snape wondered, as he listened to the sound of the Muggle toilet flushing and the water spiralling from the tap into the basin, what the boy was doing about the appropriate toiletries. He resolved to burn his toothbrush and towels first thing the next morning. 

He was fully prepared to wait out another sleepless night, but he must have fallen asleep while waiting for Potter to finish, because when he next opened his eyes it was late evening and he was lying atop his bed, still in his clothes.

He lay there for countless moments. The house was absolutely silent. 

He knew better than to believe that Potter was gone. He rose slowly, a dull throbbing echoing throughout his head, and pulled a fresh jumper and pair of dark grey trousers from his chest of drawers. He dressed slowly, then headed downstairs. 

Potter was sitting at his kitchen table, eating the last of his cold cuts. Snape noticed that he was wearing new clothing for the first time since invading Snape's house. He hadn't brought it with him, and Snape wondered where he'd come by it before remembering that Potter could most likely still cast magic. If Potter had been imbecilic enough to _Accio_ fresh clothing... A sudden horrific vision of Potter's latest adolescent Muggle ensemble speeding down the street to his front door flashed across his mind's eye.

"What potions are you brewing, Snape?" Potter asked without preamble. Snape continued to find the deep, commanding tone of Potter's voice unsettling; he was still half expecting it to crack on every other syllable. _Yes_ , his mind reminded him. _Potter is a adult now, and an Auror, and you had best not anger him._

"I see you didn't bother to wake me before your little foray into my garage." He stalked over to pantry and set about fixing himself supper.

"You said you weren't brewing any potions, Snape," Potter said, rising from the table, the ever-threatening wand making another appearance.

"Wrong," he snapped, whirling to face the bastard. "I said I was housing no Dark abominations. Which," he added, "I am not."

Potter's green eyes flashed.

"I didn't ask you to correct me, Snape," he spat. "What are you up to in there? Brewing a--" 

_"As anyone trained as an Auror should know,"_ he cut in savagely, "Most of those 'potions' are nothing more than nonmagical simples, tisanes, and spirits."

"And the rest?" Potter spat back.

"Are the most basic of mixtures for healing common ailments and simple household injuries. Potions," he continued, "which any first year ought to be able to recognise and brew after his first month of schooling. Although I should not be surprised by your lack of knowledge. Your aptitude for the subject was always abysmal." 

"You haven't changed at all," Potter said softly. "Still as arrogant and spiteful as ever."

"Come now, Potter. Must we resort to primary school taunting?"

Potter's flush deepened and something flickered deep within his eyes. After a moment Snape realised it was defeat, and he turned triumphantly back to the meal he meant to prepare.

"Although, I suppose," said Potter breezily once his back was turned, "that primary school taunting is one of the few things you're capable of doing well, Severu-- I mean, _Lucius._ " 

A cold emptiness unfurled in the pit of Snape's stomach and he turned slowly to face Potter, all the blood draining from his cheeks and lips. _How did he know?_

The Auror sat calmly at Snape's table as if he were a king presiding over his court, an ugly sneer twisting the corners of his mouth and hatred burning in the pits of his eyes. His expression reminded Snape of nothing so much as Lucius _Malfoy_ \- that sneering, superior complacency that Snape had always detested.

"Oh, yes, I know," said Potter coldly, triumphantly. "Ever since I checked you into the hospital and there it was for all the world to see on the Muggle licence in your wallet - Lucius S Snape. Still pining for your old master after all these years?" 

Snape found he could force no words past the thick rage in his mouth.

Potter smiled, a cold, despising smile. "It's almost a pity he didn't survive to see you now, Snape, using his name, living like a Mug--"

"SHUT UP!" Snape roared; he could take no more of this.

Potter was on his feet in a blur, wand out, his discarded chair clattering across the kitchen floor. " _DON'T_ YOU FUCKING TALK TO ME THAT WAY!" he snarled, face a deep angry red. "I'M NOT YOUR STUDENT ANYMORE AND YOU'D BETTER DAMN WELL WATCH YOURSELF!"

"Lay one hand on me, Potter," he snarled, lips bared in a scowl, "and you will live to regret it." 

Potter advanced across the floor until the distance between them was closed. "And what exactly are you going to do, Snape?" he demanded, voice low and angry. "You may call yourself Lucius, may even think you're him, but if you think for a moment that taking his name will give you one tenth of his aptitude, or his disgusting charm, or his power, you are dearly mistaken. You will never be anything aside from an ugly, angry, second-rate wizard."

_Your father would be proud of you, brat, he thought. His insults were as disgustingly quick, but yours are much more perceptive._ But out loud he said, "I was just thinking, as I stand here looking at you, with your tangled hair and your underfed body, that you resemble no one so much as your dear godfather."

Potter eyed him uncertainly but said nothing, and so he continued in a conversational tone, "I was wondering if it was something you've consciously cultivated since the bastard's demise, or if it's merely a look common to all pitiful, worthless little pricks."

He could actually see Potter's heartbeat accelerate through the thin material of his t-shirt. "Draw your wand, Snape," he said, and his voice was deadly, chillingly, emotionlessly calm.

Snape remained motionless where he stood.

"Draw your fucking wand, Snape." Potter repeated the command, a little more loudly, anger shining through the cracks in his voice.

Snape allowed the barest trace of a smile to twitch at the corner of his lips. What a dangerous game they were playing now.

"Draw. Your. _Wand."_

_"And if I said 'no'?"_

The impact knocked the breath from Snape's lungs as Potter pinned him against the wall. He knew in an instant he'd gone too far. Never, never, never, in all those years of taunting the boy, of watching Draco taunt the boy, of watching him fight the Dark Master, had Snape ever known Potter to resort to physical violence. 

"WHERE IS YOUR FUCKING WAND?"

Potter had an arm across his throat, pressing cruelly, preventing any air from reaching his lungs, and his wand in the other hand, the tip point blank against Snape's temple. His eyes were dark, fiery, his lips bloodless, his expression murderous.

Snape stared at him in fear and fascination. _So this is what the Dark Lord must have seen before he died._ Sparks danced across his eyes, he couldn't breathe, and Potter was still raging at him.

He did not want to give in. He did not want to admit defeat to _Potter_ , not now, not after all these years. 

He did not want to die.

_"WHERE IS YOUR FUCKING WAND?"_

"I DON'T HAVE IT!" He knew the pitiful image he must present, backed against the wall with Potter's arm across his throat. 

_"What?"_ Potter hissed in disbelief.

"I do not have it, Potter. It wouldn't matter if I did. It's useless here." And there it was, laid bare before Potter - his absolute weakness, his vulnerability, his failure.

"You can't be bloody serious," Potter said. He was still frightfully angry, but his voice was no longer as loud. "No wizard is ever without his wand."

"No wizard indeed," said Snape, and try as he might, he couldn't keep the self-pity and disgust from his voice.

Potter's jaw tightened and something flashed in the eyes behind his glasses, gone so dark that the green was almost black. He glared at Snape for a second in silence, the slowly withdrew his arm.

Snape raised a hand to massage his bruised throat.

_"What are you talking about, Snape?"_ Potter said at last. His voice was barely above a whisper and Snape had to strain to catch the words. "Tell me everything. Now." The raging madman of a moment ago had vanished, and the Auror had once again taken command.

"I don't carry my wand because I am no longer a wizard," he said at last, hating Potter more fiercely with each word. Damn the bastard for finally drawing this out of him. Snape had known this moment would have to come, either here or in front of the Auror Court, but his utter loathing of Potter had not lessoned with the foreknowledge. 

"Yes you are," Potter said. "You can't just turn Squib." And then, with true interest as the thought occurred to him, "Have you been cursed?"

"Yes," said Snape wearily. "No. Not..." he drew a deep breath and tried to compose himself. "Not exactly."

Potter crossed his arms over his skinny chest and prepared to wait for an explanation. 

"I haven't been cursed by anyone. I don't know that there are any other wizards within leagues of this city," he said. "It happened naturally."

His calm tone seemed to enrage Potter. "It does not happen NATURALLY, Snape," he shouted. "You cannot just turn into a _SQUIB!"_

"You can in this country," he said wryly.

Potter's eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to protest.

"Oh, you don't believe me?" said Snape. "You never were one to take the experience of your superiors at face value. Well." He extended a finger toward the microwave sitting on the kitchen counter. "Transfigure that," he commanded.

"Why?" said Potter. "So you can hex me as soon as my wand is off you?"

"No," said Snape with as much patience as he could muster. "So I can prove a bloody fucking point."

"Fine," said Potter. "Into what?"

He threw up his hands. "Anything. Whatever you desire. It doesn't matter."

Potter turned slowly to the microwave, glancing over his shoulder at Snape with deep suspicion. 

"One false mo--"

"Yes, yes, I know."

Potter glared at Snape for another long moment before turning to the microwave and casting a Transfiguration spell with a confident, almost lazy flick of his wand.

Nothing happened. 

Snape could easily imagine the bastard's incredulous expression, though Potter's back was turned.

Potter squared his shoulders, raised his wand, and executed the gesture again, slower this time, more deliberately.

The microwave seemed to grin at them from where it sat atop the counter before its form wavered and slowly dissolved into that of a meerkat.

"What the hell is going on?" Potter whispered. "It's as if..."

"The spell can't get out," he said quietly.

The erstwhile meerkat leapt from the countertop and pattered off into the dining-room as Potter whirled to face him, anger and confusion warring for control of his expression. "How the hell are you doing it, Snape? You don't even have your wand."

"For the last time, neither I nor my wand has _anything_ to do with it," he said, heat slowly creeping back into his voice. There should be no doubt left in Potter's mind. Had the boy actually become _less_ intelligent upon leaving Hogwarts?

"But it doesn't make _sense,_ " said Potter.

"On the contrary, it makes a great deal of sense." He had Potter's full attention now. "Did it never occur to you to wonder why wizards never settled the Americas?" he continued remorselessly, "though they surely knew of them centuries before Muggles?"

Potter was silent, transfixed. 

"There is precious little magic on this continent, Potter. And the longer you stay, the less of it you will have at your disposal."

Potter turned and stared out the window for long moments, watching the cold January rain slicing across the backyard. 

When he turned back to Snape his face was livid. "You weren't going to tell me," he said.

"No, obviously."

"You were going to wait until I'd lost all my magic and then attack me!"

"With WHAT, Potter? FOR ONCE USE YOUR HEAD! I HAVE NO MAGIC. I--" He cut off, panting with anger, and returned Potter's icy glare pound for pound. 

"That's not true," said Potter. "You're brewing those potions out there," he tilted his head toward the garage. "And you cast wards on those chests last night. I saw you do it."

"And if you were at all perceptive, you would have seen how utterly exhausted I became after doing so." He didn't want to talk about this at all, how long years of living in this country had neutered his every ability, but Potter had wrenched this much out of him; why not speak of the rest as well?

"Even the simplest of spells now requires a great deal of exertion to cast properly."

Potter was still gazing at him. "You're telling the truth," he said slowly.

"Oh, _bravo_ ," Snape sneered. "Now that I have you convinced, would you kindly remove yourself back to England?" _And I hope you fall from your broom and drown en route._

"No," said Potter slowly.

"What?" He couldn't believe his ears. He'd thought that - at the very worst - Potter would spend a few more minutes mocking him before returning to the Auror Court with tales of Severus Snape's humiliating Muggle existence, but not in a million years had he thought that Potter would _stay._

"Because I came here to do a job, Snape," Potter said softly. "I'm here to Observe you until it's proven beyond a doubt that you aren't in league with the Dark."

"Potter," he said slowly, as if talking to a very young child. "You have seen that I have only the most basic of magics at my ability. What use could the Dark possibly make of me?" The self-pity was plain in his voice, no matter how he tried to hide it.

Potter shrugged. "That's what I need to find out. So you might as well cooperate."

He wanted - dearly - to fight, to force Potter out. But if the bastard was still capable of such a complex Transfiguration, Snape would be no match for him. "Very well," he whispered at last. "It seems I shall have little choice in the matter." _As in so many other things where the wizarding world is concerned,_ a voice whispered in the back of his mind. "But you would do well to realise that I need not acknowledge you aside from the most basic of courtesies."

"I wouldn't dream of anything more," Potter said softly.

They quickly settled into an unspoken routine. Snape would rise early in the morning, bathe, fix himself breakfast, and then head into the garage to begin his day's work just as Potter emerged from the first floor. 

Snape would end his work at about noon, prepare and eat his lunch, and then return to the garage for another hour or two, this time to attempt salvaging what he could of his fading potion-brewing abilities.

After that he'd head to the living-room, where he read or studied until dark, then back to the kitchen for another meal, and then upstairs to bed. 

What Potter did during the first half of the day, Snape was never certain. Although hours could pass without him catching a single glimpse of the Auror, he knew Potter was never very far away. He certainly never left Snape's house. Occasionally Snape would hear Potter moving about while he was working in the garage, poaching Snape's meticulously labelled leftovers from the refrigerator or running his few sets of clothing through the washer in the basement.

They said nothing to each other for a matter of weeks, until the day Snape looked up from the antiquing cauldron to see Potter standing backlit in the kitchen doorway. The boy was in the same set of clothing he'd been wearing that night in the hospital - baggy khaki trousers and wrinkled shirt, and his hair was in characteristic disarray. Snape wondered why he didn't just cut it. 

Potter's voice broke through his bemusement. "Tell me, Snape," he said. His voice was strong, sure, but it lacked the commanding tone of the other day, what Snape had come to think of as Potter's Auror voice.

When no further illumination appeared to be forthcoming as to exactly what he wished Snape to tell him, Snape raised an impatient eyebrow.

"Yes?" he said lightly. 

Potter's gaze never wavered, but he began to look as if something were troubling him. 

Snape's carefully prepared alloy was rapidly cooling. " _Mr_ Potter," he said, producing a fair imitation of his old Potions Master tones, "If you would be so kind as to conclude this interrogation, so that I might continue _in peace?"_

Potter absentmindedly brushed the tips of his hair from his shoulders. He took another few moments before speaking. Then he met Snape's eyes. Snape could see that his eyes were troubled, even behind the thick glasses.

"Why _Lucius?"_ he said at last.

The question, so unexpected, surprised Snape so that he didn't immediately answer. 

Potter took his silence for reluctance. "You hated him," he said, his expression bewildered. "So why choose his name?"

"You find this extremely troubling, don't you?" he said in wonder. He didn't see why it should matter to the boy, regardless of the fact that he'd drawn an incorrect conclusion.

"But why?" Potter pressed. "You were better than Malfoy. If only because you were on our side," he hastened to add.

"Damning me with faint praise, I see," he said wryly, and then, "Don't be an imbecile, Potter."

"Malfoy was disgusting!" Potter exclaimed. "Arrogant, racist, evil, cruel--"

"I am more than aware of the man's many faults," he said wearily. "However, I did not choose to call myself after him."

"No one else made the choice for you," Potter said, passing down the few steps into the garage. He stopped midway across the floor, eyes narrowing as he caught sight of Snape's workbench, the crucible, and the various liquified metals. 

"Alchemy?" he asked. 

"Very good," he said; although he was not currently pursing Alchemical pursuits, it was close enough. "I wouldn't think you capable of handling the distinction between Potions and Alchemy."

"I'm an Auror, Snape," he said. "Don't patronise me." And then, "Why Malfoy's name?"

He shut his eyes. He was tired of this cat-and-mouse game, but that didn't mean he was about to let Potter command him like a child. 

"I will repeat slowly, Potter, so that your faculties aren't unduly challenged. I did not adopt Malfoy's name."

"Oh, come off it," Potter snarled. "Do you think I'll believe that?"

"So we will continue to be both blockheaded and stubborn today. Very well. Allow me to answer your question with one of my own. Potter, we are all well aware that your conceit knows no bounds, but do you honestly believe that you are the only person to carry your given name?"

"Don't be bloody ridiculous," he snapped. "Of course not. What has that to do with--"

It was actually quite amusing to watch comprehension dawn across Potter's face. "Yes," said Snape. "Exactly." He turned his attention back to his alloys, but to his surprise, Potter was not about to let the subject rest.

"If not Malfoy, then who?" he said.

Snape sighed. Prevarication would be a wasted effort. He might succeed in fooling Potter, but the truth would be all too readily apparent to the Ministry and the Order. "It was my father's name," he said at last.

"Really?" said Potter, as if the very idea of Snape possessing a father was an utterly foreign concept.

"Yes," he sighed. "Lucius Severus Snape. It was a simple matter to adopt his identity and procure the appropriate Muggle identification."

"Why bother at all?" Potter asked. The Auror's voice was empty of anything save curiosity, hard though it was to believe. "You have your own identity."

"Lucius is an uncommon name, certainly, but how many Muggles do you know named Severus? Since I did not desire to have Dumbledore and his precious Order on my scent in a heartbeat, I had to--"

He'd said too much, as Potter had no doubt intended him to do.

When he next looked up to meet Potter's eyes he found the man staring at him coldly, clinically. Calculating. His next words were only too predictable.

"And why were you trying to escape the Order in the first place?"

He'd just confirmed Potter's every suspicion, and he had nothing to blame for it save his own idiocy. Even had Potter come here unconvinced of Snape's innocence or guilt, there was no way those words would have left him in any doubt. 

"Because I find exile eminently preferable to the humiliation of being removed from my job."

Potter's look of surprise was both immediate and genuine. Snape could hardly credit it - certainly the boy had heard the rumours - but there it was. 

"Removed from your job?" he repeated. "By who? When?"

"By your dear supporters," he said bitterly. "Surely this is common knowledge."

"Dumbledore never said anything," Potter said slowly. "We came back for Autumn term and there was another Potions Master in your place.

"So no, it isn't common knowledge."

"And it never occurred to you to ask what had become of me?" he sneered.

"Of course not! We were just glad to be rid of you."

The words were not unexpected, but they still stung him dearly, even after all these years. "How remarkably crass, even by your standards," he spat softly. 

"Oh, shut up, Snape," Potter spat back. "What did you expect? It isn't as if you've ever gone out of your way to be pleasant to people."

The lump had settled back into his throat, and it was hard to work words out around it, but he managed nonetheless. "I have found precious few who are willing to give me the opportunity."

He'd fully expected Potter to make use of this admission in formulating another barbed retort, but incomprehensibly, the boy did not. He made no move to leave the garage, but neither would he meet Snape's eyes.

"So this is what you do here, then?" he said finally, gazing at the shelves of weakly-brewed potions, the tools, the workbench of cooling alloys, although his words were clearly meant to encompass the whole of Snape's life.

"Yes," he said wearily. "I am as you see me, Potter."

Potter swallowed, nodded once, and then finally turned to leave Snape in peace. Snape hailed him right as he was about to shut the door behind him.

"Thank you, Potter, for leaving before you begin gloating over my downfall."

Potter flinched as if physically struck. He half made as if to turn back to Snape, but then stepped into the kitchen, shutting the door quietly behind him. 

Stanton rang later that morning. Snape hung up the telephone and turned to find Potter standing behind him, a bemused expression on his face.

"Potter, it is merely a telephone. I'm certain you've seen its like before."

Potter seemed to remember himself at the sound of Snape's voice. "Who were you talking to?"

"A business associate," he said cautiously.

"'Business associate?'" the Auror parroted. "You have 'business associates?'"

"Yes, Potter," he sighed. "Unless you believe the Dark Lord's adherents make a habit of ringing me on weekday mornings."

Potter actually _smiled_ in response. And then, "What _do_ you do here, Snape?"

He didn't want to trust Potter's apparent calm; he'd already fallen into that snare once already. Yet a great deal of tension seemed to have been diffused during their confrontation in the garage, enough that he found he could meet Potter's eyes. But try as he might, he could find nothing but mild curiosity in their depths. 

"Tell me one thing," he said at last. "If, at the end of your sojourn in my presence you find no evidence of a continuing association with the Dark, can I expect further harassment from the Ministry?"

"No," said Potter. Again, Snape searched his eyes, and again he could find nothing hidden in them.

"Very well. Come along."

"Where?" Really, the boy could make even the simplest of conversations excruciatingly prolonged.

"To meet my business associate."

Potter's expression registered clear disbelief. "You're inviting me?" 

"You'd follow anyway," he said darkly, heading toward the hall closet and his winter coats. "So I might as well dispense with the useless formality of refusing to take you along."

There was nothing Potter could say in response to this, and he knew it. He said nothing as he trailed after Snape to retrieve his coat, which Snape noted he'd hung in the closet alongside Snape's own clothing. 

He opened the door and they both stepped out onto the front step. The day was cold but sunny; unusual weather for this time of year. Somehow, it made the leaden greys of the dead lawns and leafless trees more bearable. 

Yet the ever-present wind whipped their hair about their faces, and Potter hunched his shoulders and turned his back to it while he waited for Snape to lock the door. He checked the knob twice and then led the way down the street into town. For once in his lifetime, Potter remained blessedly silent, and so Snape was almost able to ignore the Auror's presence entirely, which he did with blissful abandon. 

They arrived at the coffeehouse after a brisk thirty minutes' walk. The blast of dry, heated air as the door swung shut behind them was jarring, and Snape stood for a moment, trying to blink some moisture back into his eyes. Beside him, Potter removed his glasses and scrubbed a hand across his face.

Snape wondered for a brief moment if they were, against all odds, early, but just then he caught sight of an older, smartly dressed man seated at a corner table. The man looked up and noticed him as well. "Lucius!" he called warmly, and motioned the two of them over to his table.

He shot Potter a quelling look before the boy could open his mouth and ruin things, and then led him to Stanton's table, weaving deftly between the closely-packed tables.

Several years ago, in a fit of nostalgia, Snape had given Stanton a good deal on some of his 'rare' Dobunni staters, all because he'd been starved for the sound of a familiar British accent. To his surprise, rather than abusing this ridiculous display of sentimentality as any rational man would, Stanton had seemed genuinely grateful for the gesture. Although they had not exactly become friends, they continued to do a great deal of business with one another during each of Stanton's periodic visits to the Americas. 

Stanton rose from his chair and warmly clasped Snape's hand in his own, much to Potter's obvious surprise. Snape introduced Potter as his cousin (much to Stanton's obvious surprise), and then pointedly ignored the Auror as he set to discussing customers, accounts, requests, and pricing with Stanton.

Their conversation was broken only by the occasional pause as they stopped to sip their coffees, or by the waitress stooping to refill their mugs during her periodic tour of the establishment floor. Snape had fully expected Potter to become bored or even agitated during the long, esoteric dealings, but contrary to form, he appeared to be paying them both rapt attention. He even interrupted the conversation himself on a few occasions, although he always addressed his questions to Stanton. 

Snape sipped uninterestedly at his coffee while he waited for Stanton to explain the finer points of 5th century BC die-casting to Potter. The boy was applying himself to the conversation with a sort of fevered attention Snape had never seen anyone but the Granger brat exhibit. If only Potter had directed that attention to his studies, and not breaking every conceivable rule in place at Hogwarts... But then Stanton finished with the boy and turned to inquire as to the possibility of obtaining some Zhou-era spade currency for a client. 

They were very rare items. As it happened, Snape suddenly discovered that he did indeed have one or two in his possession, so he set to the finer details of negotiating their wholesale value. 

Eventually they came to an agreement about pricing, and Stanton turned to securing several more items from Snape's 'rare' collection. Then the conversation strayed to broader topics, at which point, and to Snape's utter surprise, Potter made himself quite useful. 

Like most Muggles, Stanton had no idea that any other world aside from his own existed, and so he regarded Snape as nothing more than an expatriate countryman. Snape could easily handle most of the conversational topics to which Stanton leaned: country life in the south of England, spates of bad weather, agriculture. But when Stanton veered from these topics into more political or cultural arenas, Snape was utterly at sea.

It seemed Potter had recently spent no small amount of time in the Muggle world, or at least studied its current trends, for he soon engaged Stanton in a lively discussion of a new novel and then a few of the modern television programmes. 

At long last Stanton pulled an antique pocket watch from his coat and announced that he'd best return to his hotel, as his wife and two eldest daughters were most likely waiting for him.

Snape asked Stanton to send his regards, though he'd never met the family in question, and then solidified his plans to meet Stanton later on that week bearing the promised goods. Stanton clasped hands with Snape once again and then the three of them made their way to the till, settled their bills, and left.

It had been a remarkable success, Snape reflected, given all the potential for disaster to occur. They dawdled for a few minutes in the car park, during which time Potter even fielded Stanton's questions as to their familial relationship (Lucius never mentioned any cousins, he'd said, smiling all the while at Snape) with remarkable composure.

Stanton offered them a lift in his car, which Snape refused, as compared to brooms, the things were ridiculously claustrophobic. He stood with Potter while Stanton eased his automobile into the afternoon traffic. Stanton beeped his horn once, and then he was gone. All in all, the afternoon had been rather a success.

Of course, Snape reflected, the glorious calm of the past two hours could not possibly persist forever with Potter still about.

They'd hardly turned the corner before Potter began peppering him with questions. "You're an _antiques dealer?"_ he said, staring at Snape in a mixture of disbelief and incredulity.

Snape found this irritating. "That should have been readily apparent, even to you, Potter," he said.

Potter was silent for the space of six paces. _"Why?"_ he said.

Snape stopped mid-stride and turned, the wind whipping his coat about his legs. "Because it earns me a great deal of Muggle money through a minimum of human contact."

Potter's mouth dropped. "Oh," he said. And then, "But where do you get all of them? The coins, I mean?"

"I should have thought that was obvious," he said. "I don't 'get' them, Potter, I create them."

"You create them?" Potter repeated stupidly. "How? Where?"

Really. Had Snape not known better, he would have thought the boy a simpleton. "In my garage," he said. "Obviously." 

"Obviously?" said Potter, still adrift in a sea of incomprehension.

"Yes," said Snape. "Potter, when you were carefully examining my every last possession, did you fail to notice the dies, the casting equipment, the books about antique coinage?"

"Yes, but..." Potter said slowly. And then with accusation in his tone, "You said you were doing Alchemy."

He sighed and wrapped his coat more tightly about his chest; an evening chill was borne on the wind. "No, Potter, you assumed I was doing Alchemy." He paused and considered. "Although a knowledge of that art has certainly helped me perfect my replicas."

"You weren't talking replicas with Stanton," Potter accused.

"No, obviously not. I take wizarding currency, melt it down and recast it into 'antique' coins, which I sell to Muggles who are apparently willing to pay great sums of money for the things. As far as Stanton is concerned, come next Thursday, I will be handing him original specie."

This announcement truly upset Potter. "That's disgusting, Snape! He trusts you and you're lying to him. They aren't real coins - they're worthless!"

"Considering that the currency I'm destroying to make those coins is both older and rarer than the currency I claim to be selling, I rather think not," he snapped, and then turned and continued down the street, Potter tagging at his heels like an especially yappish and persistent chimerhua. 

"It's still dishonest!"

"And what would you have me do?" he demanded, not bothering to meet the man's eyes. "I had never set foot in the Muggle world until two decades ago. I have no Muggle connections, skills, or education. What else am I fit for?

"It may seem a simple step for you; you were raised as one of _them,"_ he continued. "But I assure you, Potter, it is a struggle for me. Had I realised at the time of my departure how ridiculously naive I was being, I doubt I would have been able to leave in the first place."

Potter blinked owlishly behind his fringe. "I didn't think about--"

"Oh, obviously," he said. 

"And you're..." Potter began, then shut his mouth and sank into thought. 

They passed the rest of the walk home in silence. They were both huddled once again on the doorstep, Snape unlocking the door, when Potter apparently changed his mind. "And you're happy like this?" he blurted out. There was no hostility in his tone, but neither did it sound as if he believed it possible.

"I am...content," Snape said at last. 

Potter seemed to want to say more, but did not. Snape opened the door and bowed Potter through with a sardonic flourish of his hand. The Auror disappeared upstairs and Snape went about preparing his dinner as usual. 

_I am...content._ It was true; at the very least, more so than when he had lived at Hogwarts. He was occasionally...lonely, to be sure, but that had been the case for most of his life. He stared out the window at the dark evening sky and watched his reflection, pale and hollow-eyed, as it mirrored him eating dinner. 

That evening, Potter emerged on the staircase as Snape was making himself comfortable in the living-room. 

"Why do you have all these books, Snape?"

"Because I enjoy reading." He spoke with the long-suffering tones of one used to explaining simple matters to the extremely daft.

"But they're all Muggle books."

"Magical ones would be less than useful, given my present circumstances."

Potter clomped down the remaining stairs, absentmindedly tucked a lock of hair behind one ear and reached for a random volume. " _Culpeper's Complete Herbal & English Physician,_" he read. "You really find this interesting?"

"You should know, having read all my notes in its margins." He turned his attention back to the book open on his lap, eager to end the conversation.

"I know," said Potter at last. Something in his tone made Snape look up from his Paralcelsus. 

Potter was now seated in the wingchair next to the fireplace, where he was waiting for Snape to meet his eyes. "It was the first thing I felt truly uncomfortable doing since I came here," he said matter-of-factly. And then, "I'm sorry."

Snape began to prepare something biting about how Potter had best be sorry for it, but the words dried on his lips. Potter was being, of all things, _sincere._

To his surprise as well as Potter's, he nodded dumbly, and then proceeded to ignore the boy for the remainder of the evening.

And so another variation on their routine was established. That evening, and on each that followed, Potter came to join Snape in the living-room. He never spoke more than a word or two to Snape, and never deigned to touch a book himself, but he appeared each night without fail. At first, Snape found Potter's mere presence to be extremely disconcerting, but as the days wore on he realised the man had, unbelievably, no intention of doing anything save sitting. Let Potter waste his time; he could stare at Snape all he wanted, and he would never see the slightest hint of Dark, no matter how badly he longed to discover it.

After that, Potter's presence barely registered at all. 

Snape was at his work again several days later. Stanton had rang earlier in the week to say that he was attending a dealers' showing in another city and wouldn't be able to receive the coins from Snape personally. Which had turned out just as well, given the fact that Snape could not get the alloys to mix correctly.

"Bloody. Fucking. _Hell!"_ he spat as yet another wretchedly obvious mistake emerged from his die. This coin was _easily_ within his means to create; he could not fathom why he'd turned out nothing save failures thus far.

"Language," admonished a dry voice almost directly behind him. 

He jumped; when the hell had _Potter_ come into the garage and how much had the man observed? "That's rich, coming from _you,"_ he intoned, not bothering to turn around.

"What do you mean by that, Snape?" The retort was immediate but carried no real ire.

"You know precisely what I mean," he responded, discreetly wiping his sweaty hair back from his face. "I well remember how horrifying your language was at Hogwarts."

Potter gave a short bark of a laugh. "You're prob'ly thinking of Ron, mostly," he said.

Snape straightened and gave a long-suffering sigh. Potter was no longer the vengeance-obsessed wretch who'd first put him under house arrest, but he was just as annoying in this new incarnation as well. "Have you come here for the sole purpose of tormenting me?" he inquired.

There was a pause as Potter considered. "Not entirely," he said at last.

Snape squeezed his eyes shut. He was bound to develop all manner of nasty ticks before Potter's blessed return to England. "Then may I ask," he gritted out, "to what I owe the pleasure of your company _this_ time?"

"'S nothing to eat," Potter said immediately. 

At that he _did_ turn around. "And whose fault would that be," he said icily. Potter's green eyes were laughing at him behind the glasses and the unruly tangle of fringe.

"No idea," the boy responded impishly. "But you'd probably best think about getting some more." 

"Unfortunately," said Snape, "as you show no signs of leaving, it has become my intention to starve you to death."

"If I don't eat, neither do you," said Potter.

"If my own death by starvation is the price by which I may secure your demise, so be it."

Potter snorted and crossed his arms about his chest. "I could almost think you were being serious," he said.

"Oh, do not doubt that I _am_ being serious," he said silkily. "It appears that death is the one manner by which I might be free of you, and thus I have no choice but to pursue it."

Something shifted minutely in Potter's expression. His gaze shifted from Snape's eyes to some indeterminate corner of the garage. "Well, there's no food anyway. Just so you know," he said, and then removed himself back to the kitchen.

Snape sent a dignified sniff after him, then returned his attention to his work. Yet try as he might, he could not get the coins to cast correctly, and he finally gave it up for a lost cause. At least he was in no hurry to get the order finished, as he could now post it to Stanton at any time within the next month.

And there were more pressing matters to attend to. After searching most of the house, he finally located Potter in the study, where the boy had evidently been practising wand gestures every day. 

Potter's expression was delightfully sheepish when he realised that Snape had been observing him. "So this is what you've been doing every morning," Snape said.

Potter squared his shoulders defiantly. "Yes," he answered.

"It's a pointless exercise," Snape informed him. "Your skill will continue to wane, no matter what you do in an attempt to save it."

Potter shrugged, although the gesture did not look as nonchalant as Potter doubtlessly hoped it had. 

"Idiot boy," he snapped. "You're wasting your time. It has already been proved that I pose no threat to you." He attempted ire, but his pleasure at finding Potter worried about his declining skill was such that the words were not as scathing as he would have wished. 

"Now come along."

Potter eyed him warily. "Where?" he demanded.

Snape arched a brow. "I am feeling charitable at the moment," he said, "and I plan to buy some more food this afternoon." 

"So why don't you run along and buy it, then?"

"Because I am not feeling so charitable as to spare you from the joys of Muggle commerce."

"I'm not paying for anything myself."

Snape shot him a withering look.

The sheepish expression returned. "All right," the boy said at last.


	3. Chapter 3

They made the trek into town at a leisurely pace. Snape was not enjoying Potter's company per se, but the knowledge of what he was about to do increased his appreciation of the boy’s presence greatly. He was smiling a not particularly nice smile of anticipation, which only widened when Potter noticed it. 

Finally they reached the broad shopping alley the Muggles referred to as the 'strip mall.' Snape waited until he had Potter's full attention and then reached into the breast pocket of his coat and retrieved a folded piece of paper and a leather wallet full of Muggle 'bills.' He handed both to Potter, who accepted them automatically.

"Well, then," he said.

"Well then, what, Snape?" Potter said, and for once Snape was actually able to enjoy his thickheadedness. 

It finally dawned on Potter to open the sheet of paper in his hand. His eyes narrowed as he read.

"You can't be serious," Potter said.

"I am indeed," he responded silkily. "As long as you are a...guest...in my house, you might as well put yourself to good use. You will find enough money in the wallet to purchase the items I've listed, as well as rather considerable sum which you may choose to spend as you wish."

"Right," said Potter through gritted teeth. "Let's get on with it then."

"We," Snape inquired?

"Yes, we," said Potter irritably. "Unless you had other plans?" 

"I do, as it so happens."

"And they would be?" Potter said tightly.

"Waiting for you to return with the necessary items." This was turning out to be a most amusing exercise indeed.

He tried a different tack. "I don't live here, Snape. I don't know where anything is." 

"Then you had best begin to familiarise yourself."

"You're going to be waiting a damn long time," Potter threatened.

"I am a most patient man," he assured him.

"I'm an _Auror,_ Snape!" Potter exploded, then reddened at the curious glances of the passersby.

Snape was silent for a moment, savouring Potter's anger and the fact that the boy had to struggle to hide it. "Aurors have to eat as well," he informed him in his most condescending tones. 

"You bastard!" Potter spat. "You're enjoying this!"

"Immensely," Snape assured him, and enjoyed himself even more.

Potter sent him a final, scathing glare before stalking into the nearest shop.

It did take the boy a great deal of time to make his purchases, although not as much as it had taken Snape during his first years as a Muggle. Snape reminded himself, however, that the boy had been raised as a Muggle and would of course be better at Muggle shopping than had Snape, and so Potter's ability did not needle him as it would have otherwise. 

And it was rather delightful that Potter had to return to the bench where Snape awaited him two or three times, as there were too many items on the list for him to carry at once.

Unfortunately, this meant that Snape had to help Potter carry the day's shopping back home, but he did not really mind. It was late afternoon, sunlight slanting through the low grey clouds so that they walked through patches of light and dark as they made their way home. 

"How the hell did you manage this on your own?" Potter grumbled under his breath, struggling to resettle one of the heavier bags with his knee.

"By never letting the stores in my pantry fall to such dire levels." 

Potter jumped slightly; he hadn't been expecting an answer.

"You couldn't take the bus, or something?" he asked irritably. "Or are you afraid of it, like you are cars?"

Now it was Snape's turn for surprise. Potter's uncharacteristic moments of perceptiveness continued to catch him off guard. 

"I have ridden the Knight Bus," he responded, rather irritably himself.

"Then it's all the more irrational," Potter shot back, and readjusted his parcels yet again.

"On the contrary, as Muggle buses are driven with one-tenth of Prang's remarkable _lack_ of skill, my reaction is quite rational indeed." 

As if to prove his point, a metro bus came careening around the corner, spattering them both with mud as it raced the streetlight to the intersection. Snape regarded the hem of his angora coat critically. 

"And as you will notice, objects do not move out of the way for the Muggle version," he said dryly. 

Potter was silent for a long moment. "I see your point." 

They left the subject at that, and Snape was rather surprised to find that he was glad it hadn't degenerated into another pissing match. He was still relishing having made Potter do the shopping, but even so, he had to admit that life was easier when he was ignoring Potter, as opposed to goading him into an argument. 

Between the two of them they managed to get the door open with a minimum of parcels left on the doorstep, and then trooped to the kitchen where they deposited the first load onto the kitchen table. 

Snape flung open the pantry doors and began to replenish its shelves in his normal fashion; grains and breads on the lowest shelf, canned goods above them, and root vegetables and spices on the highest shelves.

He'd fully intended to make as much use of Potter as possible during this exercise, but the boy had managed to make that a chore instead of a delight.

"Good gods," he said finally, "Enough!"

Potter froze where he stood, hand half-outstretched to the middle cupboard, where he had been about to deposit a box of cereal. A look of utter incomprehension was plastered on his face. 

Snape buried his head in his hands for a brief moment. "You are making an absolute mess of my kitchen," he told Potter. "Out!" 

When Potter did not move, Snape advanced on him and snatched the offending article from his hands. "The cereal does _not_ go in there," he said, removing it to its correct location on the shelf above the gas range. 

Potter's brow furrowed. "Snape, you're treating this as if it was--" He cut himself off and exited the kitchen, a bemused smile on his face. 

Snape's unpacking went a great deal faster once the boy was no longer there to throw it into disorder. And Potter did make himself useful after all, carrying the few remaining bags in from the doorstep to the kitchen.

Potter brought the last of the parcels in and then did not return, so Snape unpacked Potter's items as well. The difference between their purchases was most enlightening. Snape's list had consisted of raw ingredients - fruits, vegetables, cheeses, broths. Potter's shopping consisted of microwave trays, instant noodles, and an assortment of cereals containing garishly-coloured, sugar-coated oats and petrified marshmallows.

It was also clear by their paucity that Potter had not spent all of his money on food. He was most likely planning on stealing more of Snape's leftover cooking. _Very well,_ he thought. _I shall make smaller portions._

He was able to attend to his potion-brewing with renewed concentration that evening, no doubt owing to his triumph over Potter, and so when it came time for dinner he saw fit to treat himself.

Potter emerged into the kitchen two hours later. "Are you finished?" he demanded.

Fork poised over the pot, Snape opened his mouth to ask Potter what exactly he was on about, and then understood. They had tacitly observed a bathing and dining schedule ever since Potter had arrived at his house, and tonight he'd deviated from that schedule by a few hours, extending 'his' time in the kitchen.

Potter was probably very hungry. Well, it couldn't be helped.

"I'll finish shortly," he said, and returned to his meal. But instead of retreating into the living-room, Potter seated himself across the table from Snape.

"What on _earth_ are you doing?" he asked. "Is this your meal?"

"Yes," Snape said, spearing a bit of apple and dipping it.

"What is it?" asked Potter.

"Fondue," he said shortly, and began chewing. Eating in front of Potter was an unsettling experience, but he wasn't about to let the Bunsen go out while waiting for the boy's exit.

"That's it?" asked Potter. "Just dipping things in cheese."

"Your acumen for noting the obvious is peerless," Snape answered, selecting a cube of whole wheat.

To his ever increasing discomfort, Potter _laughed._ "You must truly miss being a wizard."

"And how have we reached that conclusion?" He chose a slice of pear next.

Potter's green eyes twinkled. "Look at yourself," he said. This little pot with the cheese - it's just like a miniature cauldron. And the skewer--"

"Fork," said Snape around a mouthful of strawberry.

"Fork," Potter repeated smoothly. "It's like a surrogate wand. And you've laid all the food out as if it were potions ingredients."

The boy's conclusions were patently ridiculous. Still, Snape found Potter's enthusiasm for them to be most irksome.

"It is a meal, Potter, not a potion."

"You don't believe me," Potter said needlessly. "But it's true. I noticed earlier this afternoon when we were putting away the groceries. You were treating your shelves like potions cabinets."

His face took on a far away quality. "You always used to get so angry at Neville when he put things in the wrong cabinets. Made him scrub all the classroom cauldrons."

This conversation had gone far enough. Snape found that he was no longer hungry.

"Very well," he said peevishly, rising from the table. "As you made a most horrendous mess of my _kitchen_ cabinets this afternoon, you may wash the dishes."

He abandoned the kitchen to Potter and stalked upstairs to prepare for bed.

When he returned to the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, he was shocked to find those same dishes neatly lined in the drying rack by the sink. Potter _had_ washed the dishes, though this was not Hogwarts, though he had not dirtied them himself, though Snape had no authority by which to compel him to do so. It was baffling, but the idiot had been willing to do the chore, and Snape was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He heard Potter clomp down the stairs as he was eating his toast and jam and prepared himself for some outburst of surliness over the previous evening's events. But to his surprise, Potter never even came to the kitchen.

Snape set his toast down on his plate very carefully and directed all his attention to the living-room. His caution was a wasted effort; judging by the various shufflings, thuds, and other assorted noises, Potter was making no attempt to conceal his activities. Or perhaps he was making every effort that Snape hear them.

So this was to be Potter's revenge - wiping Snape's nose in the fact that he was an Auror and could do what he wished whilst in Snape's home. During the past few weeks he had almost allowed himself to forget that this was Potter invading his house, and that the boy had come here to fulfil a vendetta. 

So it was back to more 'inspections.' Very well. It wasn't as though Snape had anything to hide. He knew it, Potter knew it. And now Potter was using that fact to attack Snape, invading his private affairs when he knew Snape was doing nothing wrong.

It had been so easy to let his guard down. Knowing that he was engaged in no Dark activity, he had continued with his life as if Potter had not been there at all. Now he would pay for his credulity.

He stared darkly at the white linoleum of the floor and pondered his idiocy.

"What the--" 

He half jumped from his chair at Potter's exclamation. Silence descended for the space of a moment, and then he could just make out Potter muttering beneath his breath.

_Very well,_ he thought crossly. _I'll take the bait._ And with that he strode into the living-room to find Potter stretched out on the floor in the corner, head and torso wedged between the wall and the television cabinet.

"I assure you I have no contraband items hidden therein," he said to Potter's feet.

"I know." Potter's words were strangely distorted by the corner and the back of the cabinet. The Auror writhed about on the floor, managing to jar his hip against the cabinet in the process. 

"Ouch!" His legs flailed about, knocking over a stack of small boxes he'd apparently brought into the room with him. Snape wondered fleetingly what they were; he'd never seen Aurors use anything of their like before.

His musings were interrupted by Potter's indignant snort. "Snape, you haven't even got it plugged in!"

"Pray tell, Potter, what 'it' would be."

"The television!" Potter said, as if this fact should have been glaringly obvious. The boy's grunts and twists were this time accompanied by a violent rattling. Potter muttered a few curses, the rattling ceased, and then the boy extracted himself from behind the cabinet.

"Don't tell me you unplug it every time you use it," he said, rubbing his hip, face flushed from his recent exertions. "It's too tight a fit, even for me."

"Of course not. It has never been plugged in in the first place."

"Then how on earth do you use it?"

"I have never used it."

Potter stared at him in stunned silence. "You've never used it before?"

"I have no idea how to go about doing so." 

Potter flicked his fringe out of his eyes and gave Snape a long, suspicious stare. "Getting you to explain something," he said only half under his breath, "is like trying to take Galleons from a Niffler. Why even bother with a television if you aren't going to use it?"

"Because experience has taught me that Muggles are deeply suspicious of anyone who does not own one of the useless contraptions."

"You've had Muggles over?"

He rolled his eyes heavenward. "That would be necessary in order for them to discover my lack of a television, yes."

"You've had Muggles over," Potter repeated. "To your _house?"_

"Never if I could avoid it, but yes. It has, on the rarest of occasions, happened."

Potter blinked owlishly. "Oh," he said. "Well, now you can turn it on when they do visit."

"You have no doubt rendered me a great service," he said dryly. 

Potter grinned and motioned to the boxes at his side. "Care to watch a film?" 

Snape made a noncommittal grunt and returned to his breakfast in the kitchen. When he reemerged into the living-room he found Potter curled up on the floor, head propped on one of the sofa pillows, watching his 'film,' which was utterly unremarkable save for its frequent showy explosions.

Snape snorted and pulled a volume of Crowley from the shelf nearest the desk.

"You can't tell me it isn't exciting," Potter said, twisting awkwardly to look at Snape.

Snape cocked an eyebrow without lifting his gaze from his book. "Any desire I might once have possessed to witness 'exciting' explosions was more than cured by seventeen years as a potions master."

Without looking, he could tell that Potter's attention had shifted entirely from the film to his face.

"Why did you leave, Snape?"

"Have we not engaged in this conversation previously? I have no wish to discuss it further."

"You wouldn't answer me then, either."

"Potter, I cannot be held accountable for your faulty memory."

Potter extinguished the television and stood, shoulders squared. "I won't leave off until you tell me what happened."

Snape shut his eyes and placed his book carefully on the desk. "As I told you before, I was run out of my job by a rabid pack of your supporters--"

"That's not true," Potter whispered.

"By a rabid pack of your supporters who felt that I had outlived my usefulness after the Dark Lord's demise--"

"No." Potter's voice rose dangerously.

"They had me removed from my position at Hogwarts and then did nothing to halt the rumours that I was in league with the Dark, though they knew full well that I was not.

"As," he added, heart racing, "I am sure you already know." Was Potter so obsessed with revenge, that he wouldn't rest until he'd forced Snape to say this out loud?

"And I told you before that no one knew!"

"And you are LYING!"

"No!" shouted Potter, and Snape did look at him then. "No," he said more softly. "I'm not. All right. Maybe the Order knew, maybe it didn't. Maybe the Ministry knew, maybe not. But _I_ never knew until now."

That couldn't be...sympathy in Potter's gaze, so what was it? It wasn't possible that Harry Potter, the man who had it all, could find any point of similarity between himself and Snape, any point over which to commiserate. And yet, what was that look in his eyes? Certainly not the triumph and condescension Snape had anticipated.

Potter was still staring. "Look," the boy said, brining a hand halfway to his face and then dropping it helplessly, "I didn't know. Believe me if you like, or don't, but that's the truth.

"All I knew is that you'd disappeared. And given the rumours that you'd gone Dark, I didn't care to ask beyond that."

He paused and then continued, "I know you haven't gone Dark."

Snape shut his eyes again. His head was pounding and he felt ill. _Why_ had Potter come here at all?

"Tell me one thing," he said at last. 

"Yes."

"Did you believe the rumours?"

Silence.

"Did you believe the rumours?"

"That's not fair," Potter whispered.

_"Did you believe them, Potter?"_

_"Who wouldn't have!"_

And there it was, out in the open, though he'd known it all along. He turned to leave the room, to go...somewhere. Potter's voice stopped him.

"Look... Snape, who wouldn't have?"

"Who indeed?" he said softly.

"Snape." The voice was closer this time, as though Potter had approached him. Or perhaps it was just that the buzzing in Snape's ears was beginning to subside.

Snape could tell that Potter had selected his next words carefully. "It just... Everyone was worried. Nobody could believe Voldemort was truly gone. And then you disappeared, and--"

"Those rumours began long before my disappearance."

Potter was silent. 

"Tell me something else," he said. "Did Dumbledore ever publicly acknowledge the part I played in the Dark Lord's fall?"

"No," said Potter softly.

"Did any members of the Order?"

"No."

He nodded once, without turning around. "Thank you."

The sound of Potter's film carried faintly through the ventilation ducts so that Snape heard the occasional explosion or scream from his bedroom. Eventually the film ended, or Potter extinguished it, and Snape heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing, the whir of the furnace and the moan of the wind about his windows. 

But the initial rush of vindication soon wore off, leaving a passionless disappointment in its wake. He had known full well the assumptions the wizarding world must have made after his disappearance; it wasn't as though Potter's words had come as any sort of shock. Was he to sit here, locked away in his room like a sulking adolescent? Had he fallen this far? The possibility was disgusting.

He returned downstairs to find the living-room blessedly empty. He had no desire to read, and even less to play with Potter's beloved television, so he found himself staring out the window, across the front garden and street.

The sun slowly worked its way across the sky, five o'clock came and went, cars rushing past as their occupants returned from work. The street lay deserted as families disappeared indoors to have their dinners, then a few children emerged to play on the lawns of the houses across the street. Several bicyclists passed. And elderly couple took their dogs for a walk. 

Night fell and lights were switched on in the neighbourhood's houses, creating a patchwork of golden squares on the ground outside. Potter gave a bitter laugh.

"We look the same, from this perspective."

Snape was too tired to be startled by the Auror's sudden appearance. His focus shifted from the street outside to the windowpane, where his reflection, dark haired, pale, and hollow-eyed, did indeed look a twin to Potter's. 

Potter's next words were startling. "What's the 'Albus,' Snape?"

"Where did you hear of that?"

"You were muttering about it in the ambulance. I thought you were talking about Dumbledore..."

"But you've since realised I wasn't." 

"Yes."

_How charitable of you._ A few years ago-- A few _days_ ago, he would have easily been able to spit the retort out, dripping venom and malice, but now... He wondered if Potter hadn't spent the last twenty years learning how to slowly, surely, wear his ability to resist down to nothing.

"The _Albus_ was one of the Dark Lord's more ingenious curses," he began slowly, letting his gaze shift back to the darkened street outside. "It basic function is similar to that of the _Imperius_ \- replacing the victim's own consciousness with that of the caster's. Only instead of bending the victim to the caster's will, the _Albus_ alters his very perception of reality."

"Go on," said Potter.

"Those under the effects of the _Albus_ perceive themselves as being trapped in an endless white desert. They are able to speak, to walk, to eat, but are unaware that they yet exist in the reality you and I share. Once the victims were completely under the effects of the curse, the Dark Lord would introduce all manner of hallucinations to make them believe they stood a chance of escaping. Some of the illusions were quite inventive. 

"At any rate," he continued, aware that he was rambling, "he especially liked to employ it after the _Cruciatus_ curse; said it was the icing on the cake. He named it the _Albus,_ obviously, to needle Dumbledore."

"And that's what you thought had happened to you when you opened your eyes in the hospital--"

"And saw nothing but the white ceiling, yes," he finished.

Potter was silent for a long moment, thinking. "But I've never heard of it, so it couldn't possibly be as bad as the Unforgivable Curses."

"No, Potter, it is far worse. If cast successfully, the effects of the curse are instantaneous, and the illusion is so complete that even when the curse itself wears off, most of its victims still believe themselves to be under its influence. They refuse to believe that they've been returned to reality, no matter what evidence they're offered to the contrary. 

"It was one of the Dark Lord's most clever ideas - because he tormented the victims with illusions of escape, when returned to reality, they believe it to be yet another illusion, and operate under that assumption."

“Neville's Mum.” Potter’s voice echoed to the very corners of the room.

“Yes,” he said finally.

"But why does no one know about it?"

"Use your head, Potter!" He was surprised to find that he still felt so strongly about this, even after so many years. "You of all people should know that the Ministry is more than willing to disavow knowledge of any situation that might cause it to lose face. The existence of a fourth, incurable curse, of the same magnitude as the Unforgivables, certainly falls into that category.

"A group within the Department of the Mysteries has been searching for a countercurse for years, all to no avail. Outside of that consortium, few are even aware of its existence."

Potter fell silent again, and for such a long period of time that Snape finally searched his reflection in the window for any hint as to the man's thoughts.

When Potter finally spoke his voice was cold. "How do _you_ know all of this, then, Snape?" 

It was his turn for silence. When the words finally came, they did not come easily. "The Dark Lord perfected all of his curses on his Death Eaters."

The accusation was gone from Potter's voice as if it had never been there at all. _"He cast it on you?"_

"Yes, and on many other Death Eaters besides. Oh, never with as much intent as he did with his enemies," he continued at Potter's incredulous silence. "That would have been counterproductive. But as you are aware, he was not above insuring allegiance through fear."

"That's why you wanted out."

"Among other reasons, yes." 

Potter swallowed; Snape watched the shadowy bob of his adam's apple in the windowpane. "Did you ever cast it, Snape?"

"Do you really want to know this, Potter?"

"No. But I have to anyway." His voice shook with quiet despair.

"On occasion. But never particularly skilfully. My personality is not suited to achieving the mindset necessary for casting such a curse."

"Oh, don't give me that, Snape. You're a spiteful, sarcastic bastard."

"Yes, Potter, it is a well known fact that I do not suffer fools gladly. But sarcasm and spite are a far cry from abject sadism."

Potter swallowed again. "Sorry," he said, so softly Snape barely heard him.

"As am I, Potter."

Hd retreated once more to his bedroom, where he sat on his bed, hands between his knees, and stared blankly out the window. Not that the view was terribly different from that on the ground floor. 

He felt... absolutely empty. His body was drained, hollowed, an empty husk. His thoughts slid from him like water through a sieve, so that he finally stopped attempting to think at all and let his mind go smooth and blank.

He could not be sure how much time had passed when Potter knocked on the door, though he knew it must be late in the evening.

He didn't bother to tell the Auror to come in; he was sure to do so regardless of Snape's wishes.

It was quite a surprise when Potter knocked again after a few minutes, and then again, after another few.

He rested his head in his hands, then stared out the window once more. "Come in." 

Potter opened the door quietly. A shaft of light arced out from the doorway, falling just behind Snape on the bed.

"Are you going to use the kitchen tonight?"

"No." What on earth was Potter after?

"Oh. I'm hungry."

He sighed. "Are you making this fact known for any particular reason?"

"It's just that... I'm out of food, so I thought I'd ask you before eating yours."

It was difficult to bite back the wave of hysteric laughter that threatened to overwhelm him. "Pray tell why your conscience has waited this long to plague you over eating my food."

Potter shifted his weight from foot to foot, making the shaft of light dance across the bedspread. "Of course you'd choose now to talk about my conscience," he said, completely nonsensically.

Ah, of course. Of course. Potter had not found any current connections to the Dark, so now he was doing his best to unearth them in Snape's past. Aurors were skilled at employing mind games to keep their subjects off-balance, to induce confessions, to gain the upper hand.

He might as well play along. He stood and brushed passed Potter through the doorway. "Come along, then," he tossed over his shoulder. "I'll not have you eating my food without being present to supervise."

Potter trailed obediently after him into the kitchen, and stood quietly in the doorway while Snape pulled an assortment of vegetables, cans of broth, and seasonings from the pantry and cabinets. 

"We will make a vegetable soup," he announced to the wall over the gas range. "It can be refrigerated, so that you can eat it for the remainder of the week."

"Oh," said Potter.

He turned finally, to face the man. "Potter, you do realise that you are going to aid me in this endeavour?"

The boy shrugged. "Can't. I don't know how Muggles cook."

Snape looked at him. "Do you know how Muggles chop vegetables?" He turned back to the counter and began measuring hot water for buillion. "The theory and practice of food preparation is very similar to that of potion-brewing. As you studied the latter for seven years, your skills will be sufficient for Muggle cooking." 

"I was always disastrous at potions," Potter offered hopefully.

"And I am grateful," Snape responded, "that two decades later, Providence has seen fit to grant me an opportunity to correct that misfortune."

Potter blinked owlishly at him before emitting a whoop of laughter and grabbing the nearest knife from the rack. "Soup, then," he said.

Potter maintained a steady stream of inane chatter as they prepared the soup, broken only by pauses in which he listened to Snape's directions. Snape had never realised that Potter was capable of such continuous mindless nattering, but he was obscurely grateful for it, all the same. It kept his mind off of earlier events.

And as the soup warmed in the pot over the burner, its aroma slowly filling the kitchen, his appetite did return so that when it was ready, he sat down at the table across from Potter and ate two bowls himself.

The meal did wonders to improve his mood, and he felt well enough by its end to look over some Arabic medicinal texts before going to bed.

True to form, Potter trailed after him into the living-room.

Snape selected a volume from the shelf nearest the window and then seated himself in his usual spot on the sofa. Potter cleared his throat and Snape ignored him, giving his full attention to his book. It was his signal to the boy to leave. Potter resolutely ignored it, although he did let Snape work his way through five pages before speaking.

"Really, Snape. Why do you have all these books?"

He sighed and carefully placed his book upon his knee. "Because I enjoy reading them, Potter."

" _Just_ because you enjoy them?"

"Yes," he said soothingly. And then, switching to his most biting tones, "I have heard it referred to as 'pleasure reading.' You might even try it yourself at some point during your lifetime." That would get rid of him.

But to his surprise, Potter stalked into the room and grabbed a volume at random off of the nearest shelf. He snapped it open, collapsed into one of Snape's large, overstuffed chairs, and glared at Snape over the top of its pages.

Snape arched an eyebrow before returning to his Arabic. 

Potter would most likely turn restive after a few minutes, and he wanted to immerse himself as deeply as possible in the text so that the inevitable distraction would not be as disruptive as it might otherwise be. Yet twenty minutes later, Potter had not even uttered as much as a single word. In fact, he continued reading long after Snape had retired to the first floor to prepare for bed. Snape could still see the glow of the living-room lamps as he crossed the hallway to his bedroom.

He was certain when he woke the next morning that Potter had been putting him on. Snape was no stranger to the boy's blockheaded stubbornness, and he could easily imagine Potter staring at the volume for hours, just to prove a point. 

So it was to his enduring surprise that when Potter joined him in the living-room after dinner that night he came with book in hand. Snape was ensconced in his usual seat on the couch when Potter came slinking into the room and deposited himself in the wingchair as discretely as possible. 

Snape wasn't about to encourage the boy, and honestly, didn't Potter realise that he'd made his point already? Continuing this sham into a second evening was overkill. 

Yet aside from the crinkle of a turned page, Potter was absolutely silent. He didn't even fidget. Perversely, Snape found the boy's serenity hugely distracting. After twenty minutes, he had had all he could take of this charade.

"Potter," he said, laying his book down on his knee and rubbing his hand over his eyes, "you need not waste your time pretending to read. Please, for the love of god, go off and amuse yourself." 

"I'm not pretending!" Potter seemed genuinely surprised by Snape's accusation.

"You cannot mean to tell me that you are actually reading--" He paused until Potter lifted the book so its spine was visible. " _The Book of Going Forth By Day_?"

"I am!" Potter insisted. And then at Snape's continued look of incredulity, "I had no idea how fascinating this was - the way Muggles try to invent magic."

"By god, we've had a breakthrough," he muttered. 

Potter shot him a lopsided grin.

And so Potter, the boy who had rarely touched his schoolbooks, began systematically working his way through Snape's library. On the one hand, it was fascinating to watch the boy discover the value of the volumes Snape had amassed.

On the other, Snape had little chance to read himself, as he now spent a good deal of time discussing his books with Potter every evening. And while Snape certainly knew more about the history and development of Muggle experiments with 'magic,' Potter, now that he was becoming familiar with its sources, began to regale Snape with tales of how those experiments had entered popular Muggle culture. Snape even deigned to sit through a few Muggle films Potter had rented to demonstrate its influence. 

It was...pleasant to have a discussion partner after twenty years of reading as a solitary exercise. Potter was certainly a lively debate partner, and their conversations often lasted far into the morning.

The debate as to whether Crowley or Waite's methodology more closely resembled bona fide magical theory was especially intense, so that it was well past three o'clock when Snape finally crawled into bed. When he opened his eyes again it was late morning and Potter was beating ill-naturedly on his door. Snape remained on his back for a long moment, staring blindly at the ceiling. Then he got out of bed, stalked over to the door and flung it open while Potter continued to flail away at it. 

Potter was having at it with such fury that he was unable to check himself when the door was opened, and ended up thumping Snape squarely in the chest.

At least he had the decency to look sheepish. "Oh," he mumbled. "'Morning. Sorry."

"There are no words, Potter."

Potter removed his hand - rather belatedly, Snape thought - from Snape's chest, where it had been resting.

"And what has occasioned this little wake up call?"

"I want to take a shower," said Potter.

"Potter, I know your mental faculties leave much to be desired, but I am certain you are more than capable of bathing yourself."

"Hah hah," said Potter, looking slightly cross. "I was going to ask if I could use your shampoo, since I'm out, but since you're being _so_ polite about it--"

"You're welcome to it," Snape interjected, "so long as you let me return to bed in peace."

"Deal," said Potter, and then, "Where is it?"

"In the bathroom." This was like pulling teeth.

If possible, Potter looked even more sheepish; no mean feat for a forty-year old wizard.

"Couldn't find it this morning," he said. "'S why I'm asking, actually. Care to show me?"

The little bastard. "Oh, very well."

He marched Potter into the bathroom and selected a fluted glass bottle from the shelf above the toilet. 

_"That?"_ said Potter.

"Potter, at any other time I would enjoy a chance to mislead you for its own sake, but as I am most eager to return to bed, I am indeed showing you my rinse."

"That's not shampoo!"

He sighed. "No, it isn't. What it _is_ is a vinegar rinse of my own preparation. It will leave your hair as clean as any Muggle product, have no fear of that."

Potter stood for a moment, sputtering. "Why don't you use normal shampoo like every other human being?"

"Because I have no wish to walk about smelling like a flower."

There was a moment's shocked silence before Potter erupted in a deafening peal of laughter. Snape stood by the door to the bathroom, arms crossed, and waited with as much dignity as he could muster for Potter's paroxysms of mirth to subside.

_"Have you quite finished?"_ he demanded at last.

"Oh," Potter gasped. "Oh, Merlin, that- Oh, ow, it _hurts."_ He leaned against the doorjamb, arms clutching his stomach protectively and looked at Snape, face flushed with laughter. 

Snape regarded him wordlessly.

Something flashed in the depths of Potter's eyes and then he was off on a second gale of laughter.

"I fail to see the humour in this situation," Snape said at last, wishing for nothing more than to be rid of Potter, but feeling that any attempt to evacuate now would leave his dignity in shreds.

"Oh, god," Potter gasped, slowly shaking his head. _"Snape."_ And then he stood up and brushed past Snape as he headed down the hallway. He paused at the head of the stairs and turned to address Snape. "Come on," he said. "Let's go."

"Go _where,_ Potter?" he asked wearily. It was exhausting, trying to read the man's moods.

"To the supermarket, obviously," said Potter. The corners of his mouth twitched. "I want to smell like a lily."

Snape did indeed accompany Potter, as it was either that or face another tedious morning of die-casting. When he thought about it, it was rather alarming how he'd come to depend on the boy's company as an excuse to avoid doing the tasks he should have been doing.

"Was it hard learning to be a Muggle?" Potter asked on the walk back home.

He glanced sidelong at the boy. "Have you any particular reason to be interested?"

Potter considered for a moment. "Not really. Just curious, is all."

"Well, in that case I shall tell you. It was the most horrific experience of my life."

"Worse than the Death Eaters?" The imp was actually smiling.

"Oh, by far. At least the Death Eaters went about things sensibly. _Muggles_ invent all sorts of horrid detours to perform tasks that could easily be accomplished through magic, had they any of the stuff in them." He was smiling too.

Potter performed a sort of half-skipping step. "Name the worst."

He thought about it for several moments. "You're asking the impossible. The little joys of Muggle life are literally without number." 

Potter snorted. "Fine," he said. "In that case, I'll settle for knowing about the most useless." 

"Muggle photography springs instantly to mind. The creatures are fascinated with how 'lifelike' the pictures their cameras produce look."

"They do look lifelike," Potter said. "I don't see why you think that's useless."

"Muggle photographs look real, but you still can't _ask_ them anything."

Potter shot him a quizzical expression.

"What's the use," he said, "of recording someone's likeness if it remains static? A photograph captures its subject, does it not? But the Muggle version is a still picture. Its subject frozen in a specific moment in time, unable to interact, or even leave the photograph at all.

"I imagine it would be rather like being imprisoned."

"There isn't actually anyone _in_ Muggle photographs!" Potter said. "They're just light and chemicals."

Well, that was something he hadn't known. He wasn't entirely certain he believed it. "But if that is the case, Muggle photography becomes all the more useless. What can one second frozen in time have to offer viewers?"

Potter shrugged. "Quite a bit, I think." He stopped quite suddenly in the middle of the pavement and turned to stare at Snape. 

"Are you saying," he said slowly, "that there's actually someone _in_ magical photographs?"

Really. For someone supposedly possessed of a great deal of talent and intelligence - and an _Auror_ no less - the boy lacked the most basic magical education.

"Yes, of course," he said. "How else would you expect the photograph's inhabitants to so accurately portray the likenesses of their subjects?"

"Never gave it much thought," said Potter. "How does it work?"

Snape resumed the trek home before he started speaking; otherwise, he'd be standing on the pavement all evening answering the boy's questions. "Each photograph captures a small portion of its subject's soul," he explained.

Potter seemed genuinely surprised by his answer. He wondered briefly how the boy had _thought_ it worked. He was about to ask, but Potter posed a question of his own first.

"But wouldn't that, I don't know, drain the people being photographed?"

He sighed. "The portion is infinitesimal, Potter, so small as to be negligent. And yet using that infinitesimal portion, magical photography is able to create an animate, miniscule replica of its subject. Something that Muggles, for all their boasts of 'high technology' have never even come close to mastering with their so-called photography." 

Potter made a low sort of whistling sound through his teeth. "I had no idea," he said to himself. And then, "But how is it that I've seen portraits that did little more than wave at me, and then there's others where the people walk about, and talk to each other, or even leave the picture?"

"Some of that has to do with advances in magical photography, certainly. But for the most part, it depends on what grade of camera imp one uses."

"Like grades of film!" Potter said, as if this explained everything.

He sniffed. "I've no idea." 

"Just trust me on this one," Potter said, and shot Snape his lopsided grin.

It was enough to induce him to continue the conversation. And he was actually enjoying this rarest of chances to actually _teach_ Potter something, without the brat carrying on about bias and questioning his methodology. "Of course, if you want the likeness to be fully functional - capable of speech, for instance - you had best get a portrait made," he said. "They are much more taxing on painter and sitter both, but a skilfully rendered portrait will capture its subject so well that the likeness is all but indistinguishable from its original.

"So you see, Potter," he finished, "How your precious Muggle cinema pales in comparison to technology the magical world has possessed for centuries. Muggle films may _seem_ lifelike, but people contained in them are unable to do anything aside from that which they were doing when the film was created."

"You make it sound like Muggle photography has no redeeming characteristics!"

"Oh, not entirely. Take your godfather's mother, for example. _Her_ portrait would have been much improved had it been limited to repeating the same actions time and again, unable to respond to any external stimulus. Although," he mused, "I doubt the overall effect would have been noticeably different."

Potter was silent for a long moment. Then he chuckled. "No, probably not," he said. 

The conversation turned to other topics and they reached the house as the last evening sunlight was giving way to dusk. "Why don't we have pizza tonight?" Potter said as he waited for Snape to unlock the door.

Snape looked at him askance. "I've no idea how to go about preparing something like _that,"_ he informed Potter.

The boy would not be dissuaded. "'S simple enough," he said. "And you've got all the ingredients."

He stopped halfway through the door. "Are you suggesting that I let you prepare dinner?" he said slowly.

"More or less," Potter said, and squeezed past him. "Or you could just go ahead and cook for both of us. Probably taste better that way." He breezed down the hallway into the kitchen.

Little bastard. "You might as well try your hand at it," he shouted after the boy. "Though I most likely won't approve of the result."

Nonetheless, Potter's pizza was actually quite good, in a banal sort of fashion. 

"What do you think?" Potter asked as Snape reached to take another slice from the tray.

"It isn't inedible," he said. "Though it could do with more seasoning."

"Well, you can take care of that next time." Potter’s eyes twinkled behind the glasses.

They ate slowly and washed the dishes immediately after dinner, so that it was quite late in the evening before they made it into the living-room. Potter appeared to have exhausted his conversational repertoire during their expedition into town, and for once Snape was actually getting a good deal of reading done.

His choice that evening was Dee's _Hieroglyphic Monad._ The book fascinated Snape no matter how many readings he put it through. The secondary literature on the man referred to him as either as a charlatan or madman, and yet Dee's descriptions of his experiences bordered on the magical as often as not. Snape frequently wondered if Dee had really been a Muggle-born wizard whose birth had somehow gone overlooked by his wizarding contemporaries. It would have been a fascinating subject for an academic paper, had he still lived in the magical world, and possessed the time and inclination to conduct the research.

"I'm not here with the Ministry, you know," Potter said in a conversational tone of voice.

"Is that so?" Snape murmured, not bothering to look up from his book.

"I'm serious," Potter said.

"Of course you are," he soothed, and returned to his reading. 

Thankfully, Potter let the subject drop. 

So the boy still suffered from the odd twinge of conscience. Potter knew beyond a doubt that Snape was not involved in the Dark Arts, and had started neglecting his Observation of Snape as a result. He still apparently felt obligated to make an occasional token effort to trick Snape into a confession, although the ease with which he‘d abandoned his attempt indicated that he knew full well Snape wouldn‘t be taken in by his attempts to unnerve him. 

Another week or so passed, with nothing of note occurring. Potter still made the occasional odd comment about the Ministry, but Snape was used to this and paid them little attention.

"Is it really your birthday today?" Potter asked over breakfast one morning.

Snape choked on his cereal. "How in Merlin's name did you know that?" he gasped when he could manage it.

"Was on your driver's licence," Potter said around a mouthful of toast.

"And you remembered that?"

Potter looked apologetic. "Well, I was Observing you," he said a little defensively. "It's part of my job to remember."

"Ah, of course." Snape paused, thought, and continued. "For what little it's worth, it is indeed my birthday. Although, having seen it on the licence, why you bothered to ask is beyond me."

"Well, I thought it might actually be your father's birthday."

Snape raised his eyebrows. The boy could be quite analytical when it suited him. "I used his name, yes, but beyond that, all the details on my identification are my own. After all, it is far easier to lie when the lie is kept simple."

Potter nodded. "You should know. You’ve had a lot of practice."

He laid his spoon on the table with a loud clunk. "In the future, Potter, please abstain from insulting me in the most obvious way possible."

"No, that's not what I meant!" Potter looked _hurt,_ of all things.

"Then pray tell what you _did_ intend to convey by that statement."

"Only that you spied on Voldemort for over a decade, and that had to involve a lot of lying."

He'd almost forgotten how nettling the boy's sense of moral superiority could be. "What would you have had me do, Potter? It was a necessary evil."

Potter trailed his spoon through his cereal, eyes lowered. "Yeah, it was," he said softly. "I'm glad you did it."

"Thank you," said Snape, and felt almost contrite for having snapped at him.

"Well," said Potter after a moment, brightening visibly. "Since it is your birthday, we should do something special."

"Good heavens, why?"

Potter's face evinced a queer mixture of surprise and affront. "Because it’s your birthday!"

He had no choice but to smile. "Potter," he said, "I am a middle-aged, solitary former wizard. Why on earth should I commemorate the day at all?"

"Because that's what people do on birthdays!"

He shook his head and reached for the toast.

“Only," Potter continued, shoving his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, "You haven’t had anyone who’ll celebrate with you here, and I know I was so happy when it finally happened for me. People celebrating my birthday, I mean.” His face took on a wistful quality. “Hagrid gave me a cake. Little squashed, but still, my first real present."

"Well, you were a good deal younger...twelve, I believe, when you received your first presents? Sixty is a good deal removed from that age."

Potter blinked. "You've never got a birthday present?"

"No," he said. "Of course not. My family was of the opinion that they are a foolish indulgence, and I agree."

Potter was staring.

"Stop that," he snapped. "Your cereal will go soggy."

Potter shook his head as if emerging from a long sleep. "We need to get you a birthday present," he said.

This continued harping on the idea of birthday presents was ridiculous. "And what on earth do you suggest? Flowers? Tarts? A _pet?"_

Potter propped his chin on one hand and actually appeared to consider. "No," he said slowly. "You wouldn't like any of those."

He snorted, but said nothing.

"I know!" Potter brightened. "Books!"

It was patently ridiculous, but his interest was piqued, if only a very little. "You can't be serious."

"Why not?" Potter said. "I know you like them, after all." His smile widened. "And you are interested."

"What books?" he said cautiously.

"Whatever you like. We'll go into town and look."

Well. 

Well.

It _was_ an offer of free books.

"Oh, very well," he said, and tried to look cross.

So noon found them strolling into town. Before Potter's arrival, he'd made the excursion once a month, twice, perhaps, if he was meeting a client. He'd come to make the trip with alarming frequency these past few weeks. 

Although, it was not entirely unpleasant with someone to talk to on the way. _Not_ that he would ever have admitted such to Potter. It would, Snape mused, be most unadvisable to do so. Potter kept up a constant stream of chatter while labouring under the impression that Snape didn't approve of it. He could only imagine how Potter would go on if he were to find that Snape actually appreciated his nattering.

It was a pleasant afternoon, cool and breezy, though the low clouds promised rain later that evening. They took their time walking, so that nearly an hour passed before they arrived at Barnes and Nobles Booksellers. 

It was a weekday afternoon, but a surprising number of people were in the shop nevertheless. Snape made a beeline for the mediaeval history shelves, having long ago learnt that the 'Occult' section contained nothing save rubbish, and soon had his nose buried in a possible selection.

Still, he looked up from time to time to keep an eye on Potter, an effort which was surprisingly difficult. With his shoulder-length hair, thick glasses, and shabby, unkempt clothing, Potter very much resembled the fashionable Muggle youth who frequented the bookseller, and Snape would easily have lost him in the crowd if he hadn't remained suitably attentive to the boy's whereabouts. 

He was sorely, sorely tempted to present Potter with the dozen or so books he was considering for purchase, just too see the look on the boy's face when he realised the importance of never extending open-ended invitations, but decided against it in the end. After all, were he to come into possession of everything he happened to want at this moment, what else would there be for him to anticipate?

At any rate, Potter appeared content to let a few hours pass while Snape weighed the merits of his choices. When Potter did collect him he'd pared his selections down to three volumes, which Potter seemed more than happy to purchase. 

Snape even managed an awkward thank you.

"Don't worry about it," Potter said, grinning. "You do realise I'll read them all once you're finished with them." And with that they set out for home.

It was close to five o'clock before they returned. They had a light meal of sandwiches before Potter, yawning hugely, announced that he was heading upstairs for a nap.

"Didn't sleep so well last night," he said, and now that he mentioned it, Snape could see the dark circles ringing his eyes and the unnatural grey cast to his skin.

He declined Potter’s offer to help wash the dishes and sent the boy on his way. Still, it didn’t take Snape long to finish the task on his own - in fact, it was over all the sooner for Potter not being there to distract him with conversation while he worked. With all the dishes set in the drying rack, he wandered into the living-room. He'd just settled down to read one of his purchases when the first crack of thunder sounded in the distance. So the storm was coming. Well, he'd known that even without the thunder; ozone lay thick in the air.

Good. He'd always found storms relaxing. 

And yet, even with the relaxing staccato of rain against the window, Snape couldn't concentrate on the words. _It's my birthday,_ his mind kept telling him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd even bothered to mark the day at all; trust Potter to bring these sorts of things to mind. Since his arrival the boy had done nothing but remind Snape of all the things he'd rather not remember at all.

Well, attempting to read anything was pointless excercise while he was in this state. Snape closed the book and carefully shelved it next to some obscure Chinese herbals. It would hold until he was fit enough to pay it proper attention.

He headed upstairs to prepare for bed, but it seemed such a waste to retire so early, especially when he had the house to himself. The idea struck as he stood irresolutely in the hallway. He listened carefully for any telling rustle or sound of movement from Potter's room, but there was only silence behind the door, not even a solitary creak of bedsprings. They boy was truly asleep.

That settled it. Snape turned and stepped back to the landing, then stretching himself to his full height, reached above his head and caught - just barely - the latch to the attic. He tugged and the hatch opened, ladder descending in its wake. Snape ascended cautiously - the rungs were thin and not terribly sturdy - and then shut the hatch quietly behind him. 

The rain pattered soothingly against the roof of the attic, which was really not a proper attic at all, but rather a sort of space between the first floor ceiling and the roof above. It hadn’t even been floored, although the previous Muggle owners had laid wooden boards over the rafters to make a platform of sorts. They’d used the space for storage, but as Snape had little in the way to store, there was plenty of room for him.

He’d made use of the area on countless nights such as this before Potter’s arrival had thrown his life into disarray. After the Auror's appearance he hadn’t dared come up here, no matter how badly he’d desired the solitude - wizardry had a long tradition of performing magic in tower areas, and he hadn’t wanted Potter to suspect him of attempting Dark incantations in the attic.

Even after he’d realised that Potter no longer posed any real threat, he’d been strangely reluctant to alert Potter to the attic’s existence. It was _his_ place, and as pleasant as the boy’s company could be on occasion, this was still _his_ house, and he didn’t want Potter everywhere in it. 

He stretched himself on his back atop one of the boards, shut his eyes and for a long while thought about nothing save the sound of the rain on the shingles above. Yet eventually reality began to intrude, whether he willed it or no.

He opened his eyes and stared at the eaves above, dimly illuminated by the single small window in the far wall. His sixtieth birthday. As of today, half his life was gone, and what had he accomplished with it thus far? It was easy to be honest with himself here, in the dark, with nothing but the gentle drumming of the rain for company.

Precious little. He was, as Potter had said those weeks ago, a second rate wizard. He had helped to overthrow the Dark Lord, but then so had many others besides him. In fact, precious few knew of or cared what part he’d played in the War. He’d spent fully one third of his life in exile on this magic-barren continent, far from everything he‘d known.

He’d made a living for himself, but he was a charlatan whose living depended on deception - no great change there, all things considered. He had no legacy, no family, no friends.

And the delicious irony of it was that _Potter,_ of all people, had come as close to becoming his friend as had anyone else in his life. But Potter had only been thrown here by circumstance, and would no doubt be returning to England shortly, his mission completed. So no, he was not Snape’s _friend,_ although he still fitted the description better than most.

And if the Snape of a quarter-century ago could have known of _that..._ He laughed, not entirely bitterly, his voice echoing weirdly off of the eaves.

“....you are!” Potter’s voice travelled faintly from somewhere in the hallway below him.

There were a few resounding thuds before a beam of light shafted into the attic as Potter pulled the hatch down. He shut his eyes against the blinding illumination, and when he opened them again, it was to find Potter standing on the ladder, his head and neck just peaking above the hatch mouth.

“So this is where you’ve been all evening,” he said, squinting around at the attic. And then, “What are you doing here, Snape?”

He turned away from Potter and stared at the ceiling. The shaft of light did not disappear, so Potter's upper bits were presumably still invading his sanctum. 

"If you are standing here waiting for me to commence Dark incantations, you will be sorely disappointed."

“We both know you aren’t about to start doing that, Snape.” Potter’s voice was faintly accusatory.

“Yes,” he sighed, not removing his eyes from the ceiling. “We do know that.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“I often come here to listen to the rain.”

“You haven’t since I’ve been here,” Potter said.

“No, I haven’t.”

“So why’ve you started now?”

“Because I have resolved to cease concealing my myriad eccentricities from you. You may feel free to make a full report of them to the Ministry upon your return.” He did turn then to look at Potter.

Potter’s face was carefully blank, but the wounded look in eyes spoke volumes. “I wish you wouldn’t say those things,” he said softly. “I’ve told you I’m not going back to the Ministry.” 

“Potter, you have tried using this tactic before, and it has yet to yield results. Why you persist is--”

“Anyway, I’ve made tea, although it’s probably steeped too long by now.” Potter tried for a smile, but it looked forced and one-dimensional. “Care to come down?”

Snape sighed and examined a knot in the rafter above him before answering. “I might as well,” he said at last.


	4. Chapter 4

The tea had indeed steeped for far too long, but as it chased the chill from Snape’s bones, he drank it gratefully all the same. For once Potter was uncharacteristically quiet as he sat in his customary wingchair, griping his cup with both hands, saucer forgotten on the floor at his feet.

“I’m really not here with the Ministry,” he said again.

“Potter, this is entirely unnecessary. Your feeble attempts at mind games have not fooled me, and besides, we both know that I have nothing of interest to be tricked into confessing.”

"You still don’t believe me, do you?” Potter said as if he hadn’t heard Snape at all. "You could use Legilimens and find out. I don't understand why you haven't tried to already."

"Potter," he sighed. "We both know that I am no longer capable of either Legilimency or Occlumency."

"You aren't?" 

He set his cup carefully atop its saucer with an all-suffering sigh. "If it weren't true, would I have bothered wasting my breath to say so?" 

That Snape could no longer practise Legilimency was a fact well known to both the Ministry and Dumbledore, as it should have been to any Auror sent to Observe him. The only reason Potter could possibly have to press this point was to amuse himself, yet judging by the look on Potter's face, the brat did not appear to be pursuing this line of questioning for his own enjoyment.

"But I've studied Legilimency."

Snape raised his eyebrows. "Yes, I am _well_ aware of that, Potter." Funny - recalling Potter's intrusion into his memory used to burn until he could hardly bear it. Now those memories were faded, like a taste he remembered as being unpleasant, without remembering the taste itself.

"I'm not talking about _that_ time," Potter protested. "I studied Legilimens during my training - not how to do it, but the theory behind it, how it works. _All_ Aurors have to, as part of their training, even if they don't have any talent for it."

Harry Potter, The Boy Who Could Do Everything, admitting that he was less than skilled at something? The universe continued to surprise. "Whatever did you manage to learn?"

"That it's there for life," Potter responded instantly. "That you can't just unhave talent as a Legilimens."

"No, you cannot." 

"Then you can still use it."

"Yes." He didn't know why he was admitting this now, to _Potter_ of all people, except that it was a relief to finally openly talk about it to someone.

Potter appeared to find this line of questioning frustrating. _"Then why in Merlin's name are you insisting that you can't use it to see my thoughts?"_

He truly _didn’t know?_

"What exactly do you know about the part I played in the final months of the War?" At one time he would have given anything to ask this question of the boy, to force him to see that he, Snape, had played just as large a role, made just as great a sacrifice, as had Potter himself. But now that the chance was finally upon him, he felt nothing but weariness.

"I know that you used Legilimency to see into Voldemort's mind."

"That is correct. And if you truly studied Legilimency during your training as an Auror, you should know that in order to Legilimens a subject over great distances, one must be bound to that subject. Permanently."

Potter went utterly still. Now, _now,_ he finally understood. 

"What do you see?" he asked.

Snape stared at the empty wall across from him, but did not see it. "Beyond his grave."

The boy had the decency to look stunned. "Oh gods," he whispered.

"Yes," Snape said. "'Oh gods,’ indeed."

At long last, Potter broke the silence.

“But why, Snape?”

“Because it was needed. Because in order for you to be in place to kill the Dark Lord, an accurate knowledge of his every thought, whim, and desire was necessary. Legilimency was the only way to obtain that knowledge, and I was the only Legilimens with enough aptitude to force the connection without the Dark Lord's knowledge.”

“But no one in their right mind would voluntarily choose to--”

“Of course not!”

“Then who convinced you to do it?” he whispered.

"Dumbledore, obviously."

"But he had to have known that once I killed Voldemort, you'd be forced to spend the rest of your life seeing everything Voldemort saw after he..."

"He did indeed. And you of all people should know that such petty inconveniences rarely concerned Dumbledore, when they served a greater good. 

"And I imagine,” he said in answer to Potter’s continued silence, “that that is a good deal of the reason why he has yet to acknowledge my role in the War.” 

Potter’s adam’s apple bobbed repeatedly. “And yet you agreed.”

“Yes, and in so doing I severely misjudged Dumbledore’s character. Oh, don’t think for a moment my choice had anything to do with some misguided desire to save the wizarding world,” he snapped. “I would happily have let the Dark Lord rampage for another three decades if it meant that I need not bond with him.”

“Then why?” Potter whispered.

He laughed, a tight, bitter sound choked from his throat. “Because I believed it to be the one act of heroism that would eclipse your own,” he said, and it was worth it to see the look on Potter’s face. “Only I never imagined that Dumbledore would never reveal it at all.” 

“No,” Potter whispered. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh? He suffered no qualms about doing similar to you, when he concealed the nature of the prophecy concerning your birth for so many years, all in the name of the 'greater good.'” He drew a deep breath and continued. “I do believe, now, that for the most part his motivation was...genuine. But regardless, once the War was over, it was far easier for him to let the villain remain a villain than to expose his own grey moral choices to public scrutiny.”

“My gods,” said Potter, his voice strangled. “My gods, if I’d had any idea when I came here, I never...” He raised pleading eyes to Snape’s face.

And at the half-anguished, half-crazed look on Potter’s face, he finally began to doubt. 

“I don’t believe you,” he said at last, although it was easier to believe with each word he spoke. “No. What reason would you have for lying?”

“Because I hated you.” He spoke simply, quietly, and then looked Snape full in the eye. “I don’t now. I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said again. “Potter, I've no idea what you’re playing at, but for the love of god, _stop.”_

“I’m not playing,” said Potter. “I’m not here with the Ministry. I never was. I... I made all of it up.”

Snape could not break his gaze away from those eyes. “But that’s impossible. How did you even manage to find me, else? This house is Unplottable, and I use all my remaining magical aptitude to remain Untraceable.” 

Potter laughed, a laugh as empty and bitter as Snape’s had been. “It was entirely by accident,” he said. “I happened to be on the street when a car ran the light and hit someone - you. I ran to help and I was so shocked when I saw your face, they must have mistaken it for me being shocked _for_ you.”

Which was why Potter had been permitted to accompany him to the hospital. He buried his head in his hands. “And you just assumed that I was a Dark wizard?”

“Yes.”

“And you then decided to pretend to be an Auror sent to 'Observe' me because the idea struck your fancy?”

“Yes,” said Potter. He sounded anguished.

Good.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

Snape could not reply. 

“Snape, look at me.” When Snape did not look up, he repeated the words. _“Look at me.”_

Snape raised his head then, fingers still hovering just above his cheekbones, to find Potter staring at his feet. The boy shuddered, drew a deep breath, and raised his eyes to Snape’s. “I’m sorry,” he said again, almost beseechingly. “It didn’t take long before I knew you weren’t Dark at all, and I’ve felt _horrible,_ you can’t have any idea, I...”

“That’s enough, Potter.” He stared for a moment at his shaking hands, and then began.

“You can’t possibly,” he said, and had to pause until his voice was under control again. “You can’t possibly know, Potter, what it was like, what it was like to come here, and still you, you--”

“But I _do_ know!” Potter shouted. “I _do!_ That’s the worst of it, I--”

“HOW CAN YOU?” He was shouting now too, and doubtlessly as flushed as Potter, but by the _gods._

“You are the _hero_ of the world,” he said. “The Ministry, the Order, the Hogwart’s staff, the Wessex Wizarding Ladies Auxiliary, they all lick the hems of your robes. I was naught but a villain, someone never to be trusted, let alone _thanked,_ but _you! How can my situation possibly compare to you?”_

“But it DOES!” Potter took a step toward him, half made to take him by the shoulders. “I’m the _hero,_ Snape! I’m the _saviour_ of the _world!_ I never _asked_ for it, and once Voldemort was dead I was through with it! _But no one else was!_

“You can’t _live_ like that, Snape, not when everyone expects you to conform to their image of you, not when no one sees you because they already think they know who you are. It’s--” He stopped, panting.

“You know what it’s like,” he said at last.

And the curse of it was, he did. Oh, he did. He’d never even considered that the adulation he’d craved so desperately could be as suffocating as the contempt he‘d sought to escape. 

“Do you see?” said Potter softly.

“Yes,” he said.

They stayed there, motionless, for a good hour, Snape seated on the couch and Potter standing above him, neither of them speaking a word.

“I’m going to bed,” he said finally, rose, and left the room.

Potter’s voice pursued him as he ascended the staircase. “Are you angry?”

He stood, one hand on the banister. “Yes,” he said finally. “But not entirely with you.” 

Potter said nothing, and made no attempt to stop him as he climbed the rest of the stairs and secluded himself in his room. 

He lay atop the coverlet, eyes unblinking, until he heard Potter's soft footfalls several hours later, and waited for the click of Potter's door in the jamb before he roused himself to fetch a glass of water from the bathroom.

The liquid stuck to his throat like the most viscous of potions, and he abandoned his efforts to drink it before the glass was even half emptied. He sat on the edge of his bed, hands between his knees, and stared at his feet, ghostly and skeletal against the dark pile of the carpet.

He hadn't lied to Potter. He was angry, he was terribly angry, but the anger was directed at so much more than the boy. He could feel it, black and bilious, just beneath the skin, pulsing through his veins like blood. He wished he _could_ be angry at Potter, at anything that would give his rage focus. He'd spent his life hating, but until now his hatred had always been fixed on _something._ The vastness of this emotion was something he had no experience comprehending. 

He hated the world for it, for finally giving him an...ally, and then taking it away like this. 

Snape was a naturally early riser and had never needed an alarm clock to wake by. So he had no clue, as he lay on his bed and stared unblinking at the darkened ceiling, whether seconds passed or hours, or whether the seconds only felt like hours. Occasionally a car could be heard passing on the street outside. 

He awoke at seven the next morning, as usual. He'd anticipated nightmares, but had had none; it was as if his slumber had been an annihilation in which thought, fear, and regret did not exist.

He wanted nothing more than to remain in bed, never to emerge again, but he knew that Potter would get up eventually, and that he'd have to see Potter eventually, and that it would be better if he were up first. He stood slowly and slowly made his way down to the kitchen. 

Potter emerged an hour later, wearing the same clothing he'd worn the night before. He seated himself across from Snape as though this morning were no different from any other. Snape handed him the cereal and was obscurely comforted that he'd kept his hands from shaking.

Potter accepted wordlessly, poured his cereal into his bowl, then looked at Snape with that piercing green gaze.

"You'll be returning to England, of course," he said before Potter could open his mouth. 

Potter nodded slowly. "Only, I'd like a week to make travel arrangements. I came as a Muggle, so I can't just take my broom back over. And I don't think I'd be able to Apparate any longer."

Snape nodded. "You may have it," he said. 

That the week Potter requested had stretched into a month, neither of them mentioned.

“I really am an Auror, you know,” Potter said one morning over breakfast.

“Potter, please stop.”

“No, it’s true,” Potter insisted. “’S why I sounded so convincing when I was lying to you. I knew enough to make it believable, especially since I knew you hadn’t had anything to do with the Ministry for twenty years.”

Snape thought back through two decades to an eighteen-year-old Harry Potter blustering about how he’d follow in his mother’s footsteps.

“So you managed it after all,” he said, not taking his eyes from his glass of juice. 

“Yeah, I did,” said Potter. And then, “No thanks to all those rotten marks you gave me in Potions.” 

And then they both started laughing like madmen.

A week later Potter was already seated at the breakfast table when Snape emerged for breakfast. It was only ten past, but judging by the sodden mess in his cereal bowl, the boy had been sitting there for quite some time.

Snape went to retrieve his own cereal bowl from the cabinet only to discover that Potter had already laid it out on the table. His hand strayed instead to a coffee mug, which he carried back with him. Potter politely failed to mention the fact that he'd already laid one of those out as well, as Snape set the mug down next to the first.

Snape seated himself across from Potter, crossed his arms over his chest, and trained his gaze on the Auror.

"I've made arrangements to go back... home," Potter said to his cereal.

Snape waited.

"My flight leaves tomorrow."

He nodded. There was nothing else to say.

Potter swallowed, loudly enough for Snape to hear it. "I... I, ah, wanted to apologise. For taking so long," he clarified.

"Don't-!"

Potter's head snapped up as if he'd been struck.

"...mention it," Snape amended lamely, and stared out the window. 

And there they sat, for another interminable amount of time, studying the back garden and linoleum floor, respectively, as if each had been the most interesting of prospects. 

When such an indecent amount of time had passed as to render the fiction that they were ever going to eat breakfast totally unbelievable, Snape mustered himself and spoke.

"You will, of course, accompany me into town."

Potter's gaze lifted immediately. "What?"

He rose, stalked to the dining-room entrance and whirled to face Potter.

"As you have seen fit," he snarled, putting everything he had into it, "to once again empty the contents of my pantry, you _will_ be made to replenish them.

Potter swallowed and rose. "Fine," he spat, and Snape would had to have been blind not to see the gratitude in every line of Potter's posture. 

So they made the journey into town one final time, taking it slower than they normally would have, but not so slowly as to be remarkable. A great deal of time had passed since Potter's arrival; the driving rains and cold winds of January were a thing of the past and it was quite possible that their leisurely pace was entirely due to the fairness of the weather.

Still, they did eventually arrive at the grocery. The automatic doors, running on some magic of their own that Snape had never been able to fathom, slid open to admit them to the supermarket. Potter wordlessly deviated to Snape's right and then returned presently, bearing a shopping cart.

"Figured we'd make this one worthwhile," he said, and flashed a lopsided grin. 

Snape nodded and led them off into the aisles. 

They spent at least half an hour canvassing each aisle in turn, heatedly debating the merits and demerits of every quantity, flavour, and relative nutritional content of the endless Muggle assortment of prepackaged foods. 

It was at the seasonings shelf Snape glanced up to find Potter standing at his elbow, regarding him thoughtfully.

Potter motioned to the bottle of dried juniper berries in Snape's hand. "Just thinking," he said, mouth twitching, "'bout how Muggles use them for cooking, but wizards use them to raise the dead."

"And is there any particular reason," he said carefully, "that this little bit of trivia just happened to spring to mind?"

"Well, I am an Auror, after all," Potter said.

"Is that so," Snape murmured to the bottle.

"Yeah," Potter continued, a smile wobbling across his face. "And you do have a, er, spotty past. On further consideration, I think I might have to put you under Aurorial arrest." 

It was too much. He raised his arms high above his head in an imperious gesture meant to envelop the entirety of the noisy, crowded supermarket. "Behold, Severus Snape, Dark Lord of the Wizarding World! You are all worms at my feet."

Several people turned to stare.

_"Stop it,"_ Potter gasped through his laughter, face flushed and grinning like a madman. "Snape, _please..."_

Snape turned and pointed a long, pale finger at woman who stood gaping at them from the head of the isle. "You!" he intoned. "Lower your eyes in my presence, Mudblood, or fear my wrath! 

The woman stood rooted to the spot in shock, eyes widening she stared back and forth between Snape and Potter, who was now leaning against a shelf for support, arms wrapped around his stomach and heaving with laughter. 

"What in the hell..." the woman began, but Potter, bent double now, waved a hand for her to stop.

"He's right you know," he crowed between gasps. "He really... is... a wizard. Bloody... good one... too. Could curse you... ten ways... to Tuesday. He--"

Now it was Snape's turn to stand incapacitated by laughter. _"Desist,_ Potter! Or I'll be forced to--"

"That's it," Potter gasped, made a lunge for Snape's arm, grabbed it, and began steering him down the aisle. "We're getting out of here.

"Sorry for that," the boy tossed over his shoulder to the indignant woman. They were still gasping with laughter as they exited the supermarket, leaving a pair of flustered clerks in their wake. 

They sobered soon enough as the reality that this would be their final walk together down these streets settled over them like the coming dusk. In less than twenty-four hours Potter would be on his way back to Britain, and from that point on, Snape would make this journey alone. 

They walked home in silence, and prepared their dinner in a silence broken only when Potter asked for directions and Snape brusquely supplied them.

They ate in silence as well, their meal horribly prolonged by the fact that the food was dust in Snape's mouth, and still he was determined to eat every last bite of it. This was _Potter,_ for Merlin's sake, the boy he would have given anything to have removed from his presence a mere two months ago, and that he was this reluctant to surrender the boy's company was nothing short of ludicrous. 

So Snape soldiered through his meal, bite by bite. Then they washed the dishes and by some tacit understanding removed themselves to the living-room. Potter seated himself in his usual chair, but Snape moved to the window where he could watch his reflection, pale and hollow-eyed, in the dark glass of the windowpane. The minutes continued to tick by.

Snape kept his eyes resolutely focused on the pool of light cast by the streetlamp as Potter rose and quietly crossed the room to stand behind him. "I don't want to go," said the ghost-shape of Harry to the darkened window.

Snape snorted. "Be that as it may, we have little choice in the matter--"

"Only that's just it," said the ghost-shape. "I don't _have_ to leave." 

"What are you on about, Potter?" he said wearily.

"I don't!" insisted the ghost-shape of Harry, its voice gaining conviction. "There's no reason I can't stay here if I... if you don't mind."

The Snape-ghost in the windowpane crossed its arms over its chest. "And of course no one will come looking for wizarding Britain's most famous Auror following his disappearance." 

Potter shifted impatiently; Snape felt the slight disturbance of air behind him. "They haven't come looking for me yet, have they?"

"If you are as adored as you claim to be, they will. Tell me, Auror, what on _earth_ could induce you to surrender the career you worked so hard to attain?"

"You're assuming I had a choice," Potter muttered darkly.

Snape stared at the Snape-ghost in the window and waited for Potter to provide answers; _he_ wasn't going to waste his time posing the questions Potter obviously wanted him to ask.

"You aren't the only one who was run out of a job, Snape," Potter said at length, and it obviously took effort for him to speak the words. 

"I refuse to believe that _you_ were ever suspected of being Dark."

"No, but that isn't the only way it could happen. I was a _figurehead,_ Snape. I couldn't work! I couldn't do _anything!_ There was always someone there to do it for me - because they wanted to be my friend, be close to the hero, be promoted, or because they were worried what someone would think if _I,_ the slayer of Voldemort, had to lift a finger for something I wanted."

"So you left."

"And came here." Spoken so simply, as if that was all there was to it.

He swallowed. "Very well," he said at last. "You have no wish to return to the wizarding world, a sentiment with which I heartily sympathise. But what reason could you possibly have for staying here, of all places?"

And in response the ghost-Harry lifted his hand and trailed his fingers down the back of Snape's neck. Snape turned then, a quick, abrupt snap to face his adversary, so that he could look at the real Potter's eyes, because ghost-Harry's had told him nothing.

Only they had, because it was there in the real Potter's eyes as well, accentuated by the defiant flush of his cheeks.

He had to laugh then, though there was a touch of hysteria at its corners. “You can’t possibly fancy yourself in love with _me.”_

“No,” said Potter softly. “But I think it could easily happen.” 

He choked. "What about me could you possibly..." 

He broke off in disgust, with the sensation that he'd accidentally answered the wrong question. "Potter, you could have the pick of any of your admirers--" 

Potter gave a short, bitter bark of laughter. "Oh believe me, I've tried _that,"_ he said. 

"And?"

Potter shrugged as if to say, Here I am. Alone. "Obviously hasn't worked out spectacularly well."

Snape blinked as a sudden thought occurred to him. "You aren't... Are you?"

Potter's expression took on a far-away, considering quality. "No, I don't think I am. Least I haven't yet," he said. "But like I said, I haven't had any spectacular success with the things I've tried so far."

Snape locked eyes with the boy and held his gaze. More minutes passed. It didn't waver. In fact, something in the boy's eyes seemed to grow more certain with every passing moment, and it was fixed on Snape.

"You're mad," he whispered finally.

The spell broke. Potter looked away. 

"Yeah. Yeah, I 'spect I am," he said, laughing shakily. "Look, just forget I said... any of that. It was stupid.

"Anyway, I'd better get ready for bed if I'm going to wake up in time tomorrow."

"Yes," Snape said, once again watching ghosts in the window. "I think that would be best." 

Potter nodded once and went upstairs.

Snape stood facing the window with no one but ghost-Snape for company, and _his_ empty black eyes held no answers. When the last sounds from the bathroom floated into silence and he heard the soft creak of the mattress as Potter climbed into bed, Snape finally turned from his reflection, extinguished the lights, and climbed slowly upstairs to prepare for bed as well.

The movements - using the toilet, washing his face, undressing, the sudden chill before he pulled his nightshirt over his head - were both mechanical and comfortingly mundane. 

The mattress was familiar and comforting beneath his back, but try as he might, Snape could not sleep. Moonlight slanted across the ceiling, and his eyes, bleary with fatigue, tracked its progress as the night wore on. 

When the moon set and the sun took its place, Potter would board a plane to Britain, and Snape would once again become an old, lonely man in a foreign country, living in a small suburban house in a city where no one knew his origins, his crimes, or even his true name. 

Potter had offered to stay, though Merlin only knew what had possessed the boy. Certainly he couldn't think of Snape as... No, that had been nothing more than a moment of misbegotten sentimentality, which Potter was no doubt already in the process of regretting.

Snape's feet descended, unbidden, to the carpet at his bedside and then he stood, bathed in the moonlight streaking through the gaps in the curtains, and stalked softly to the bedroom door. 

He emerged onto the landing and walked to the threshold of Potter's door. Then he wondered what had brought him there in the first place. The room within was absolutely silent; Snape couldn't hear so much as a quiet hiss of breath from Potter, who was obviously fast asleep, even if _he_ wasn't.

Yes, it had obviously been nothing more than one of Potter's strange, eccentric outbursts. Snape had had long months in which to become accustomed to them, months in which Potter had probably become equally accustomed to making them.

As his eyes adjusted to the moonless dark of the landing, Snape began to pick out shapes from the surrounding blackness: the curve of Potter's doorknob; the bathroom door, half ajar; the snake of the banister as it curled down the stairs. And were those faint blots on the wall the floral print of the faded paper, or just tricks played by Snape's tired eyes? 

"You might as well come in, you know." Potter's voice resounded like a thundercrack in the silence. 

Snape's heart nearly stopped dead in his chest, and he fought to choke back his exclamation of surprise.

"And there's no point pretending you aren't standing there," Potter continued, at the exact moment Snape had resolved to do just that. "You've been there for the better part of an hour."

A sudden irrational wave of annoyance descended over Snape. How had the boy even known that to begin with? But it did free him enough to act.

"Oh, very well," he muttered, and opened the door to Potter's room.

Potter was lying on his back in the centre of the bed, head propped up by two or three pillows, eyes glittering from a pale face surrounded by an unkempt halo of dark hair.

"I couldn't sleep either," said Potter, and somehow managed to excuse both Snape's wakefulness and his own.

Feeling rather silly standing by the door as if guarding against the possibility of Potter's escape, Snape moved to the bedside, and then perched very carefully on the corner of the mattress. 

Potter's head rolled on the pillow so he could face Snape, one glittering eye hidden against the pillowcase. "I meant what I said," he informed Snape, who sighed, and looked at the wall across from the bed as if _it_ could provide answers.

"I don't see why we couldn't try," Potter continued.

"Disregarding the fact that we spent a good deal of time as sworn enemies," he answered, "Potter, consider. I am a sixty-year-old ex-wizard, living in exile in America - ignoring for the moment the absolute _madness_ of any sort of liaison between the two of us, what about this situation could possibly entice you?"

Potter shrugged, sending a little half-stutter along the mattress. "I shouldn't have to answer that," he said. "Especially not before you've agreed to anything."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not!" Potter said. "But I'm not going to defend it to you, especially not now."

"And is this the part," said Snape, with more than a hint of self-defacing mockery, "where you kiss me and I transform into a handsome prince?"

"Hardly," said Potter. "I wouldn't have you if you did."

And then they were both laughing, only this time it held none of the crazed edge of their laughter that afternoon. 

When they'd calmed down enough that the laughter had faded to an intermittent, quiet chuckling, Snape tried again.

"Potter, I would be...grateful...for your company," Odd how much harder this was than barbing an insult, "but you shouldn't come to expect anything beyond that."

Potter nodded. "But that's just how it happens. You know that." 

"I have no practical experience with the emotion and I trust none of the books I have read on the subject."

"That's fine," said Potter, quite evenly. "I'm not saying it will even happen. Just that I wouldn't be upset if it did. And that I think, if things stay the way they are, that it might." He inflected the last word, as though it were a question.

"Ah," said Snape.

"I won't push you."

"Even so, tell me, Potter, what your friends will think when they learn that you've resolved to cohabit with their former Potions Master."

There was a sudden change in the quality of the stillness surrounding Potter. He caught Snape's gaze and didn't flinch. "They may never know."

"May I remind you that this is not some penny gothic, Potter? I will not have you playing the forlorn hero, forced to choose between lover and friends." 

Potter continued to hold his gaze. "You wouldn't." He sighed. "We aren't as close as we were when you knew us." 

Another piece slid carefully into place. "Another reason you came to America."

"Yes," said Potter. "I can tell you about it sometime." 

He yawned hugely. "But not, I beg you, tonight."

"No," Potter agreed. "Not tonight."

It was late morning, well after the time of Potter's departure, when Snape awoke to find himself still perched on the corner of Potter's bed, the muscles of his neck loudly protesting the angle at which they were contorted over the headboard. The sun suffused the room with a warm golden light, but the early morning chill had yet to burn off, and his breath misted faintly in front of him.

Potter was asleep beside him, his head against Snape's thigh. Snape rubbed the heels of his hands over his bleary eyes, and briefly considered returning to his own bedroom. But then he thought of Potter's declaration - _I won't push you_ \- and the weight of Potter's head against his leg, and the overwhelming sense of gratitude he felt that Potter had not returned to England after all.

"Oh very well," he muttered, poked Potter over, and slid into bed beside him. Potter's back was warm against his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic began as an entry into an HP FQF - the opening line and reference to Valentine's Day being the challenge - but the plot soon eclipsed all of my original intentions for the story, as well as my ability to complete it by the deadline. I kept seeing more and more scenes as I wrote, as if Snape and Harry were saying, Not _quite_ yet, Tris, there's just a little bit more we'd like to show you, and when lightening strikes, I'll stick around to watch. 
> 
> I've always assumed that wizards live a fair bit longer than Muggles, although once I'd finished this story, I realised I didn't remember that being stated explicitly in canon. For my purposes, the average wizard lifespan is about 130-150 years, which means my Snape is just hitting middle age.
> 
> The Roman emperor Lucius Septimius Severus provided the obvious validation for there having been a Lucius Severus Snape, though I've willfully confused praenomen, nomen, and cognomen in my version. 
> 
> Kudos to anyone who spots my small and obscure crossover references. You are a true fantasy lover.


End file.
